Day 16

Noon Position: 10 46.05N 122 08.91W
Course/Speed: S 6
Wind: ENE 10
Sail: Main and big genoa out; wind on the beam
Bar: 1016, rising
Sea: SE, long and low rollers
Sky: Sunny, open, light cumulus to windward
Cabin Temp: 87
Water Temp: 83 (note sea slightly cooler)

Miles last 24-hours: 116
Miles since departure: 1981

All day and all night we motored slowly south, heaving our way through a greasy witch’s brew of SE and NE swells that ricocheted merrily off each other but drove Mo starkers. Not a breath. A flat, gray sky. Enough rain to require hatches closed. And as the engine warmed, the cabin approached 90 degrees. I slept the night in a puddle of my own making, satisfied only that we were at least making southing.

Twenty hours. And when I came on deck at 4am, a lovely NE wind at 11 knots that has changed everything. The genoa and main went up before coffee.

Sunup delivered an open sky with three heavy squalls to leeward. And nothing to windward but cherubic cumulus, leant over just enough to suggest we might make way today under sail for some time.

“You will note those heretics they are to leeward, Senior,” said Monte with a wink. He was already halfway through an omelet so golden as to make my mouth tringle with envy. Omelets are not on the provisions list.

“I was unaware we had spinach and feta aboard,” I said.

“You are unaware of a good many things, Senior,” he replied. “For one, you sleep too much.” And with that he turned to face the wind.

Under a steady, dry deck I was quite productive, but still found ample opportunity to stare off into my own wild, blue yonder.

A powdery blue sky. Small herds of cumulus grazing off the minimal heat radiating upwards. A cobalt blue ocean, a prairie of sea in all directions without interruptions or limits. A light, steady, empowering wind. And Mo, charging. Or is it that Mo is still and the ocean, conveyor belt-like, reels under her for an eternity?

I know no better definition of heaven. Except maybe one that includes omelets.

Overnight a ship passed within two miles, notable only because I see a ship on the chart plotter every other night or so but this is the first whose lights were visible since departing the San Francisco bar.

Breakfast, a hotcake with peanut butter and jelly, and then another with the last decrepit bananna. The fresh vegetables are holding up well, with the exception of the apples, a third of which have given up the will to live before the zucchini look the least bit stressed.

I remember on the Friday before you left thinking “This is a house cleaning day. The sheets are going to be washed.” The process of removing you from the house, almost your ghost like footprint on a pillowcase was happening to quickly for me. I almost didn’t get the sheets washed. But my logical mind realized how ridiculous that was and did it anyway.

Today, it’s 2 weeks later and it’s an house cleaning day again. The decision this morning was – do I wash Randall’s pillow case? Yes, technically the pillow case hasn’t had a head on it so it should be clean. But the confirmation of your missing pillow in the wash would confirm that you’re not here.

Randall, as you know, I’be been going at a break neck speed since you left. I have barely been home to make my own pillow dirty. This is why it works for us. I’m off again today for an offsite with a room full of #ladybadass women. I have no doubt I’ll come out of it with more ideas and more activities to keep me busy while you’re gone. So don’t worry. While I’m thinking of pillowcases #teamjojo has be amply distracted.

And yet I have time for conversations with myself about pillow cases.

Ah the weird musings, I guess that means 25 pillow washes before you come home.

– Joanna

Day 15

Noon Position: 12 46.82N  122 03.28W
Course/Speed: S 4.5
Wind: 0
Sail: Motoring
Bar: 1015, dropping
Sea: SE 4, steep, plus others
Sky: Sunny in the morning. Then rain.
Cabin Temp: 85
Water Temp: 84

Miles last 24-hours: 110
Miles since departure: 1868

I saw movement in the cockpit well when I came on deck at 2am. A drizzly, hot rain fell. The dark of night was total, and my dim headlamp seemed to cast more shadow than light. Turned up a notch, what it revealed was a storm petrel. They are attracted to Mo’s stern light, but on such nights as this, can’t see the rigging, which catches them up short and down they come. It’s happened before.

This bird spends most of its life at sea and most of that on the wing, so its legs–long, black twigs that are cold to the touch, webbed at the ends–are nearly useless for walking. On land, it looks paraplegic as it scoots around. On Mo, once down, it’s captured and can do little to stop being rolled from one wet corner of the cockpit well to the other.

I picked it up, slowly, with as delicate a squeeze as I could muster. My wet hands formed around a thing that appeared more like a wet rag than a bird, and as I lifted, I got no perception of weight at all. It fought. Its bite was imperceptible.

I moved to take a photo, but stopped. It seemed wrong, like snapping pictures of accident victims, an invasion of privacy of sorts. Moreover, I wanted the brief pleasure of holding this animal in my hand to go unrecorded in that way.

For this bird has my utter regard. An animal with all the heft of a cup of spun sugar lives an entire life on the open ocean, in all seasons, in all weathers, flying day and night with acrobatics that make pigeons look as nimble as a dodo. Out there it is entirely suited, out there it is nearly indestructible. If I can help it return…

I lift it, palm up, into the faint wind; its sharp, crooked wings open. Within three beats the night has it.

There is another, I find, in the port scupper. Same ritual.

Later, while dropping the storm saiI, I hear their calling from just beyond the glow of the stern light. A tiny porcelain moan. Haunting. Alien.

The wind, what there was of it, got sucked up by the day and we’ve been motoring since late morning. Due south. When the sun was out, I pulled the wet things from below, foulies, dish towels, clothing, boots, and spread them on deck to dry. In the afternoon, a brown boobie came to roost on the bow pulpit and has been preening with a vengeance since.

It is now evening, and the doldrums, if this they be in fact, are playing spitefully with us. Now and again, a wind to 6 and 7 knots has been tempting. I spread our wings and the wind melts away. Worse, we’d need more wind than that to sail as the swell in here is crazy-making. Any roller created in any part of the Pacific finds its way here to play. Right now there’s a steep doozy from the southeast (with others, for fun) into which we pound and a faint, 5 knot breeze from the north. Mo’s 35,000 lbs of boat bobs like a cork. She give’s me white-eyed, wild looks as we go scupper to scupper that says, “can’t you make this stop?”

It will be an uncomfortable night.

Day 14
Noon Position: 13 57.32N 120 54.69W

Course/Speed: SE 6

Wind: ENE 19 – 25

Sail: Two reefs in working jib, two reefs in main. Then, deeply reefed jib 

Bar: 1013, dropping

Sea: NE 4 – 8

Sky: Fully overcast. Squally

Cabin Temp: 88

Water Temp: 84
Miles last 24-hours: 142

Miles since departure: 1758

By noon the sky to windward darkened and so the squalls began. The first caught me flat-footed. Previous squalls had been all rain, and I had stripped to board shorts and boots in anticipation of a refreshing, not to mention needed, shower. 

As the wall of rain approached, winds went suddenly to 35 knots. One gust I saw touched 40. The rigging began to roar and wave tops were knocked off. Mo rounded. I dashed to the mast to lower the main whose number two reef still left acres too much sail aloft. Down it came to the second batten and stopped. The wind friction had outdone the weight of the sail and I had to climb the mast fifteen feet to grab the head.

Once back in the cockpit, I reeled in the working jib to a kerchief and then bore away. Still we made 7 knots, but suddenly Mo was solid as a newly planked floor; 35 gusting 40–just nothing to bother about.

Heavy, raggend on their undersides, usually two or three cells dumping rain connected by a line of low dark cloud. One after the other separated by half an hour to an hour. All afternoon. I left Mo under deeply reefed jib. Now adjusting to a squall was simply informing Monte it was time to bear away again.

Today’s lesson in squalls was brought to us by a depression forming S and E of our position. We are crossing its path, but with the luck, it will be W and N of us by the time it develops into something to worry about. 

Not wanting to play the squall game all night, I went to the storm jib before dinner. Winds obliged by immediately dropping into the teens. We wallowed in our prudence for two hours before I opened the working jib–heading SW, 6 knots. The barometer has come up two clicks since sundown.  

Sadly, this may be the last good wind for a while. 

In the evening a brown noddie attempted to board. As I stood in the companionway, he flew up to me repeatedly with what appeared to be an intention to go below and raid the wine cellar. I stepped aside. My cellar, for what it’s worth, is open to all pelagic friends. But his courage failed. He gave me a hard look and, not liking what he saw, sat himself back into the heaving sea with a shrug. 

Short post tonight I as am beat.

165 miles noon to noon. Best day yet, this on a double reefed headsail and same for the main in trades sometimes reaching the mid 20s. Seas steep to 8 feet. Decks awash.

Yesterday the Watt and Sea hydrogenerator downhaul lanyard parted. This is a small loop of Dyneema-type line attached to the unit’s leading edge that contains a low friction ring and serves as a turning block for the downhaul. It was too late in the day yesterday to attack a job that needed thinking through, so I left it until morning. Successfully back online by noon.

In the afternoon, Mo rounded up sharply and when I went back to have a confab with Monte, I saw that the paddle had sheered right off and was dangling in the water like a dead fish. So, over the side I went (for the forth time this trip) and a new shear tube was in place within the hour. I have six such tubes for just such occasions. Not sure what the paddle hit, but in also bent (cosmetically) the paddle tube.

I was re-stowing the forepeak before getting underway and noticed a wet spot on the floor. Lifting the floorboards I found the area full of water, to the tune of 20 gallons. The only explanation so far is that the water stop I have over the anchor hause pipe on the windlass has not functioned all that well and water is getting into the anchor locker. The cock on the drain in the forepeak was open slightly, which would have let water into that compartment. Bailing and clean up left us hove to for two more hours. We weren’t underway again until 8pm.

Have had dinner. Am having a beer. Next move: bed.

Day 12

Noon Position: 18 39.15N 122 42.11W
Course/Speed: SE 7+
Wind: NE 19 – 22
Sail: Two reefs in working jib, reef in main.
Bar: 1017 and dropping (1015 by 3pm)
Sea: NE 4 – 8
Sky: Clear
Cabin Temp: 85
Water Temp: 80

Miles last 24-hours: 161
Miles since departure: 1451

All night the boobie clung to the windward rail as Mo heaved, head tucked into feathers, a study in balance and nonchalance. Spray, illuminated by the port running light, exploded a Christmas-red every few minutes and showered the bird. It would simply untuck, shake, and re-tuck.

I made dinner, then had a beer in the cockpit, and every time I looked forward, the bird had moved a few feet aft. When I came on deck at midnight, it had scooted in increments all the way back to the shrouds, which apparently qualified as dry enough territory, for there it remained during each of my successive inspections. It waited until I rose for the day before casting off. It circled the boat twice at dawn and then headed east toward crimson clouds on the horizon.

Having a visitor was pleasant as was providing such a tenuous though clearly appreciated resource, a perch above the sea.

I’ve not seen the boobie all day.
Winds freshened in the morning and by noon were often more in the 20s than not. I’d run the night with a full working jib and a single reef in the main. Speeds were great with 8 knots not uncommon. At noon we’d clocked our best day yet, 161 miles. But Mo was really working, the deck often in spray back to the cockpit. I should reef again, I thought, but I wanted the speed, and it wasn’t until 2pm that my nature’s better angel came to the winning argument: a boat at sea should seek to carry as *little* sail as is needed.

Fine! Now we carry two reefs in the main and two in the jib. Immediately, wind took note by jumping to 25 knots. Seas have built to 8 feet. The boat is entirely closed up and is a sauna below. I’m down to underwear.

I’m taking wind flat on the beam and am thus falling off my line to 10N and 115W, but it can’t be helped for now.

Day 11

Noon Position: 20 50.49N 123 21.06W
Course/Speed: SE 7
Wind: NE 18
Sail: Working jib, reef in main. True wind abeam; apparent running about 70 degrees
Bar: 1019
Sea: NE 4
Sky: Clear
Cabin Temp: 80
Water Temp: 78

Miles last 24-hours: 141 (!)
Miles since departure: 1254
Thus far the wind has held, though I got a lump in my throat in the early afternoon when it softened to 10 knots. I popped the reef in the main and whistled a happy tune and the wind soon rebuilt to 16 gusting 20.

Over night I ran with a full main and one tuck in the working jib and we averaged over 7 knots, even touched 8 knots a couple times (good speed for Mo), but it was hard work for Monte and in the morning he was soar with me. Now, with a tuck in the main and a full working jib, we steer more easily but produce a half knot less. Monte tells me this is due to an adverse current; he is sure. Whatever it may be, the more conservative is the better. We’ve many miles to go.

Current strategy: As this looks to be *the* wind, I’ve put us on a course SE to a spot at 10N by 115W, about 800 miles down hill and roughly the top edge of the ITCZ. The Horn is well E of us and as the SE trades look to be initially from the S on the other side of the ITCZ, I want to make some easting now knowing that we’ll likely lose ground to the W on the other side of the line. I also don’t want to feel pressed to be as close hauled as every can be through the early trades. I’d rather ease off and boomerang around down to about 35S.Now flying fish are common as is a lone masked boobie (black primaries, white coverts and body, blue face) that appears every few hours to patrol Mo’s wake for escaping fish. As if on queue, the fish stop flying when he is about. Twice he has dived without success. Then he wanders off only to return later and try it all again.

I don’t know the first thing about flying fish, except to say that from my observations some are small and clumsy flyers and some a large and can fly almost like birds, sailing expertly over a great many waves before nosing back home. The species we are seeing now are decidedly of the former type. As Mo runs them down, they leap and crash and cartwheel and fling themselves straight into the air and do pretty much everything except fly. It’s a wonder the boobie isn’t having a field day.

Found a squid on deck today. Didn’t eat it, though I did contemplate it.

AHA, the boobie has just landed on the bow pulpit. The sun is down. Guess he’s going to wait “here” till morning to see of the hunting gets any better.

Day 10

Noon Position: 22 50.06N, 125 35.93W
Course/Speed: SE 1 – 2
Wind: E 6
Sail: All plain sail
Bar: 1021
Sea: Very lumpy from SE
Sky: Clear with cloud at all horizons
Cabin Temp: 82
Water Temp: 76

Miles last 24-hours: 88
Miles since departure: 1113
If it is true that all great literature is, at base, an extended complaint, then could I write you such a book right now! Only the sailor knows how crazy-making (not to mention, hard work) is that teasing, on-again-off-again wind.

Which, in my case, died right away after dinner. More cautious after my batten pin failure of yesterday, I took in sail, put on the anchor light, and hit the sack. But the swell rolled Mo sick. Clang, bang. Sleep, impossible. Began motoring slowly at midnight more as a defensive move; I could put Mo’s head into the swell and at least she was quite.

Wind came out of the ESE at 6am and built to 15 knots within a couple hours. We romped off close hauled. The weather charts suggested we should, hosanna!, pick up steady wind today. Would this be our ride to the line? Man, this could be it! Monte broke out a cigar and made himself an espresso.

By noon the wind had eased to 6 knots. Two hours later, becalmed. Monte spat. “In my country, we do not do it like this.”

I took two reefs in both sails and sheeted them in tight, this so as to ease our rolling, then got on with the day’s major event: bathing, specifically, my first head and beard wash since departure. Cool salt water in a big red bucket in the cockpit, shampoo, and dunk away. Then a clean shirt and a few rolls in my (not clean) trouser bottoms–summer attire.

Revitalized, I dug out the pilot charts. It’s been nagging me for days, this idea that my course down 125W to the ITCZ took me into seasonal high pressure. Did I not see that coming? My route planning, to be fair, had been done two years ago and was based on a September, and later, an early October departure. But Cornell’s OCEAN ATLAS showed that at our current postion west of Cabo, I could expect northeasterly winds to Force 4 *seventy percent* of the time on average.

Good. Not crazy. Just unlucky.

This fact checking seems to have embarrassed Neptune, for within the hour we had 15 knots NE. As I type we are bettering 7 knots with wind on the beam.

Will *this* be our ride to the line?

Breakfast, a big pancake taco filled with two scrambled eggs and cheese (these pancakes are a real hit with the crew). Lunch, a bell pepper and a can of Dolmas. Dinner, lentil stew with rice. A beer.

Day 9

Noon Position: 23.52.22N, 125.02.98W
Course/Speed: SE 4.5
Wind: 0
Sail: Motoring
Bar: 1019
Sea: Glassy but quite some rollers coming in from the SE
Sky: Low, gray, squally with rain
Cabin Temp: 80
Water Temp: 74

Miles last 24-hours: 114
Miles since departure: 1025
Typing in the dark tonight as Mo ghosts. Still 80 degrees in the cabin at 8pm.

In today’s video, I refer to a “classic” routing error, that being that we had such good wind yesterday and the night before that I couldn’t bring myself to give up on my southing, to tack around and head E in order to stay in clear air. The GRIBS were unequivocal: I’d sail myself right out of wind if I wasn’t careful, but I didn’t believe them. I had wind–surely it would hold. After all, that’s what wind does.

Ain’t nothing “classic” about that. It was just dumb. And I’m paying dearly today and likely most of tomorrow. I sailed right into the blob and, well, have a great load of nothing to show for it.

Started motoring at 5am on a heading E and then SE to where GRIBS said wind would be later. Motored at 4 knots for nine hours during which I got the anchor off the bow and into the anchor locker, where it is lashed; I re-rove Monte’s tiller rings, and moved some heavy items from the forepeak to locations further aft. Not an unproductive morning.

Wind came up at 7 knots from the S late this afternoon. I unfurled Mo’s lovely wings … and, by way of recognition of my appreciation, the wind … died. Then it rained. Again.

We bobbed and slatted for a couple hours during which I discovered my first gear failure. The main has sheared one of the stainless pins that attaches the batten holder to the batten car. A function of all the slatting and tells me I should have dropped that big, 85lb sail rather than let if fan.

What gave me fits today, however, was that I don’t have a spare batten holder. Easy fix if I did. Sails were a late arrival and I was well into last-minute mode. Got a boat full of spares for many (clearly, not any) conceivable necessity. Except that one. Can jury rig an attach point easily enough, but a spare would have been better.

A bit low today. Didn’t anticipate such a slow, clumsy start to my happy cruise around the world.

Day 8

Noon Position: 25.24.16N, 125.26.02W
Course/Speed: SSW 6-7
Wind: SE 13-16 (these are true, by the way)
Sail: Close hauled, one reef in main; reef in #1 late
Bar: 1018
Sea: SE to 6; lumpy
Sky: Clear till noon, then overcast, thick rain late afternoon
Cabin Temp: 78
Water Temp: 72

Miles last 24-hours: 113
Miles since departure: 911

Wind died right away in the afternoon of yesterday, and didn’t return until the big moon was well up. Then it was SE 12 and stayed that way all night. Today, same, but built to 20 as the day matured. We’ve been close hauled on a course S and then SW. Wind died for an hour in the later afternoon as a heavy rain cell moved through but soon returned. I reefed the main after lunch and now have a reef in the working jib as well, but that is more for comfort as we move into a bit of a dirty night. Speeds continue over 6 knots, so who’s complaining? (I am not.)

In hindsight, I would have been better to route myself closer to the Baja coast where wind has been consistent this last week. The weather charts keep forecasting a column of air due S of me, which is part of the reason for attempting to stay right around 125W. The other is that this column is now hemmed in by high pressure on each side. Having made the decision, I’m effectively stuck with it.

And the westward dead zone is migrating my way. If I can just get down to 22N, then by Tuesday I’ll pick up a train of wind that will take me to the line.

One sign we are making southing is the temperature. Cabin is 80 degrees as I type and sticky-humid. I’m in shorts. Bare feet. The forepeak is also warm, which means I need to get at the fresh food before it stops being fresh.

Not many birds doing business in this part of the ocean. One brown boobie made several visits today and I’ve had fleeting glimpses of gadfly petrels.

Day 7

Noon Position: 26.55.51N, 124.54.75W
Course/Speed: S 7
Wind: ESE 12
Sail: Close hauled under working jib and main
Bar: 1018
Sea: NW 4, long, rolling, ESE 3, steep
Sky: Overcast, rain
Cabin Temp: 74
Water Temp: 70

Miles last 24-hours: 104 and most of it in the right direction
Miles since departure: 793

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away” is a saying most certainly invented by sailors, for there is simply no other rational explanation for my experience of inconsistency in the wind department.

We lay becalmed until midnight when a lovely breeze struck up from the ESE at 6 knots. This put us on a course due S. A few hours later the breeze was gone, though a healthy chop from that quadrant suggested something was brewing upstream. Later the breeze came in at 10 knots for a time; then 5. Each time the wind velocity changed, Monte wanted to talk about it, and I had to go to his place; he never came to mine.

I got little sleep.

The source of the chop turned out to be a steady 12 knots of wind from the ESE that arrived an hour after sunup. Now we were driving at 7 knots … straight south! “So this is what it feels like to make time,” I thought.

That held until the rains came at 2pm, at which point the wind vanished, only to be replaced two hours later by that curmudgeon, a light southerly. Currently we have 7 knots of wind from the S and are beating with painful slowness into an unaccountably sloppy sea. Speed, 3.5 knots.

Such capriciousness has all the hallmarks of divine intervention, as the ancient sailors rightly sussed.

And it is not lost on me that the above is never quoted in the reverse. What is taken is never given back, which means that my only hope is that the good lord eventually bores of messing with my wind and goes in search of more interesting projects.

The GRIBS (weather charts I receive daily) suggest this may be as early as tomorrow, when something more settled from the E is due.

No chores got done today. I was busy picking up after the Lord.

Breakfast was Muesli, powdered milk and dates; lunch, a can of baked lima beans in tomato sauce with crackers and cheese. Dinner? Unsure, except that it will be served after a well-deserved beer and may be Shepherd’s Pie.

A sailor’s hands get rough work and take some time to break in. How mine get so all-fired dirty is a mystery.

Making log entries in the pilot house.

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.

Day 5

Noon Position: 29.03.71N, 124.30.46W
Course: SW / SE
Speed: 3 – 5 knots
Wind: S 4 – 11
Sail: Close hauled under working jib and main
Bar: 1020
Sea: NW 1 – 4
Sky: Clear punctuated by large cells
Cabin Temp: 73
Water Temp: 69

Miles last 24-hours: 63
Miles since departure: 591

The text reads, “Accuracy of this note compromised by cold hands and severe boat motion. Otherwise, hove to in a gale.” This came today from a friend, Matt, who is crewing aboard DRINA as she transits the Southern Ocean from Australia to Ushuaia, a village on the southern tip of South America.

Meantime, I am beating into the light, warm southerlies off the coast of Baja and am considering myself lucky to have enough wind to come about.

Took all sail in last night and drifted. Not a breath after dark. But this southerly came up at 4 am and has built all day, built to a whopping 10 knots. And the sky has cleared at last. The blue ocean is again blue.

Breeze is subsiding as the sun is setting, now down to 5 knots, and I fear may be soon gone. But tonight we will have stars!

Yesterday, boot repair. Rubber boots may be dry, but they make for cold feet, and the antidote is a pair of Uggs. Nothing beats bare feet wrapped in sheepskin, comfort even in warm temperatures. Sadly, Uggs aren’t all that rugged. This pair can say they’ve been through the Arctic, at least…and will soon return. The goop in the second photo is Freesole, a urethane coating that locks the stitches.

Day 4

Noon Position: 29.49.54W, 124.41.42W
Course: SW
Speed: 1 – 2 knots
Wind: Light and Variable
Sail: Big Jenny plus full main and “scandalized” with the stack pack for good measure
Bar: 1018
Sea: NW 1 – 2
Sky: Gray, still. Have not seen sun since slipping under the Golden Gate Bridge
Cabin Temp: 70
Water Temp: 67
Miles last 24-hours: 87
Miles since departure: 528
Ran all night with twins poled out, but in fact they caught little air. A devil’s orchestra, they whipped and banged in their frustration and so badly that I had, this morning, to cut away chafe on the port genoa sheet where the mad dog of a pole had chewed through the cover. Day four and I’m already dealing with chafe.
An hour before dawn, I woke to find Mo making E, a nice thought, but several thousand miles premature. What there was of wind had gone into the W, and so I doused the poles and have been flying the big genoa and main since. Wind went lightly S and then SE and then W again and we slowly boxed the compass in search of a heading everyone could agree on, a disorienting experience when the sky is flat gray.

I’ve been at the tiller and sheets most of the day as this is no kind of weather for Monte.

This afternoon wind went WNW, variable 6 – 12, for three glorious hours. Monte was beside himself. He’d be happily sawing away on his fiddle back on the taffrail when Neptune would throw in a chord change. Wind would suddenly increase by 6 knots. He’d charge off WSW.

“Monte! Dude, we go south,!” I’d shout.
“What? I thought you wanted to go fast. Here is fast!” he’d shout back.
“Yes, fast *and* south.”
“Ah, but you see, Capitan, the music she does not always play in both directions.”

The wind seems to be driven by squalls but not of the kind I’ve ever seen before. These “squalls” are large and thin; they bring a smattering of rain and can take several hours to approach and pass.

The last one passed about four this afternoon, and now we are back to the cacophony of no wind.

May simply drop sails for the night.

Question: isn’t this where one might expect NE trades?

Day 3

Noon Position: 31.02.65N, 124.56.97W
Course: S (or as south as the wind will allow)
Speed: 4 – 6 knots
Wind: 8 – 15 NW
Sail: Twin headsails poled out full
Bar: 1019
Sea: NW 4
Sky: Fully overcast with some low rain squalls.
Cabin Temp: 68
Water Temp: 66

Miles last 24 hours: 139
Miles since departure: 441

Wind continues to ease, as per forecast. The deck continues gray and is punctuated only by infrequent rain squalls that leave a light lick of rain and punch up the wind to 15 knots, briefly. Otherwise winds are 10 knots and less and make for not unpleasant sailing, except that the headsails can’t hold on in the small swell and go thwap, thwap, thwap as Mo rolls.

But sailors share with beggars that they cannot be choosers. And so we sail on what we are given and are thankful when the squalls speed things up and quiet things down.

Besides, this is fine “make and mend” weather, the old square rigger term (I think) for a day set aside for chores, of which I have plenty in preparation for the voyage proper.

Frankly, it all still seems like practice. I am flying the twins (trimming and retrimming) for the first time since last summer. Am still getting used to all the new electronic gear. Each time I drop Watsy (Watt and Sea hydrogenerator) into the drink, I cross my fingers; will it work…again? Today, I made my first overcooked breakfast burrito blob, aka pancake, with peanut butter and jam, “overcooked” and “blob” being the result of not bringing the beautiful-to-cook-with cast iron skillet.

Not much to see beyond gray sky and slate water as yet. A few storm petrels keep their distance. One gadfly petrel of unknown make passed once about noon but found nothing worth a second look. A lone tropic bird, whose tail I could not identify, dropped in just now. Last night, squid looked back at me with coppery eyes as I made my donations to the sea. Beyond these infrequent visitors, we are alone.

And on we roll to the south.