At Home on the Prairie

Day 6

Noon Position: 28.22.82N, 124.07.55W
Course/Speed: S and SW 1 – 5
Wind: S and SE, 2 – 6
Sail: Close hauled under working jib and main
Bar: 1021
Sea: NW 1 – 3
Sky: Clear
Cabin Temp: 73
Water Temp: 69

Miles last 24-hours: 98 (miles through water, not made good south)
Miles since departure: 689

Mo wafted off to the E overnight and by morning was becalmed under a doughy, gray sky. We had had stars early with Orion at our bow, but the rising full moon wiped the slate clean. I made a one-pot meal of pasta and chicken and was in my bunk by 9pm.

We drifted on a flat sea till mid morning when a breeze came up from the ESE at 6 knots (a whopping big number given recent trends), and we were off on a cheery course due S. By way of celebration, I fried-up one pancake and two eggs. Did better on the pancake this time.

The beauty of days like this cannot easily be overstated, though I am willing to try…

The morning’s gray glob burned off by noon, leaving an open, powder-blue sky and a cobalt ocean to gape-at. I still have a couple pages of chores, and Mo obliged by giving me a deck with the motion of a cruise ship on which to work, but the challenge was focus when the expanse before us so clearly wanted admiration.

Though we made way, our speeds were such that we seemed not to part the water at all but rather slide atop a substance at once as clear as vodka and mysteriously opaque. Light in long streamers filtered down to depths unknowable. I could see small orbs, tiny galaxies, floating just below the water’s surface, the egg sacks of a long departed animal whose progeny would be nearly infinite if most of them didn’t become another animal’s food.

On and on we glided through what seemed open prairie; what there were of clouds were thin, attenuated, dry, and the light wind and desert sky reminded me of the Spanish Galleons that plied these waters when Sir Francis Drake came aplundring. Many struggled with similarly light winds and passages that lasted beyond their stores of water.

More than once I found myself thinking, “with such excellent, expansive views, this would be a nice place for a house.”

In the afternoon, a tropic bird, our only visitor, made several passes, but like his cousin of two days ago, remained silent during his inspections.

Now the sun is set and with it go our zephyrs. After a day of stillness beyond believing, the clank and bang begins again and I may soon drop sails, if only to preserve the delicious sense of solitude.