Slow Down Some - sailors' scheme when nearly there!

Less than 100nm to go!
Although land is not yet in sight, we have seen plenty of evidence it is close, with a constant stream of plastic bottles and bags, bits of pvc foam, logs, reeds and other assorted rubbish floating past us over that last 12 hours.
Yesterday we also saw a group of 3 Indonesian fishing boats plying their trade, nearly 200nm offshore, and all of them with a lot less freeboard than Sandale. Lucky the sea conditions are quite benign up here....most of the time!
But still no other yachts have come in sight...where are they all?!! We expect that at least 3 race yachts have passed us in the last 24 hours, but none of them have dared come within sight of us. Do they know something we don't, and are making their approach to Bali in a different direction?!
Now, apparently we aren't really in a 'race'...that's why we are entered in the 'Rally' category of this event, so it doesn't actually matter that these other faster yachts (who gave us a 3 day start anyway) are going past us. Fortunately this doesn't mean we can't win, which we have been working hard at since well before we left Fremantle 11 days ago!!
To win the Rally category of the event we had to submit before the event started predicted times for when we would pass 6 specified lines of latitude on our way to Bali. We lose points for each minute early or late that we cross these latitudes.
There are also points deducted for use of engine and bonus points for novelty items such as a use of sextant, biggest fish caught, strongest wind experienced and best voyage video produced etc - watch out for Sandale's mini feature film 'The Stowaways', sure to be a hit and available soon at a blogsite near you!
Due to Marty's amazing navigational and weather forecasting skills, and impressive all round boat handling by the crew, we have crossed the selected lines of latitude within minutes of our nominated times whilst keeping engine hours below our free allocation.
That's why you may have seen our boat speed drop off over the past day (for those of you following us on the race tracker!), since we were actually ahead of schedule coming up to 10 degrees latitude, and have slowed down to ensure we pass on time. We have also given ourselves much more time than necessary to cross the finish line, which we now expect to reach tomorrow (Thursday) morning sometime - our 'official' finish time projection is actually 7.00am Friday.
As part of our clever 'Rally' winning strategy we plan to enter Bali and complete immigration etc tomorrow without crossing the finish line, and then motor out of the marina on Friday morning to cross the finish line exactly at our specified time!! Ahaaaa!!

So thank you to all those followers of Sandale who have been cheering us along, and celebrating that our little boat has stayed near the front of the fleet for most of the event, and please don't worry when you see us let a few boats get past us as we race past the finish line, and back again!!