Flirting with the Infinite
November 6, 2018
Day 33
Noon Position: 28 18S 129 46W
Course(t)/Speed(kts): S 4
Wind(t/tws): ExS 7
Sea(t/ft): SE 2 (big old swell coming up from S, occasionally S @ 6)
Sky: Stratocumulus (Clear by mid afternoon.)
10ths Cloud Cover: 8
Bar(mb): 1019, steady
Cabin Temp(f): 77
Water Temp(f): 70
Relative Humidity(%): 54 (47% by mid afternoon; driest this passage)
Sail: #1 and Main, full; close hauled
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good (nm): 105
Miles since departure: 4353
Avg. Miles/Day: 132
Everything today speaks of desert.
Dawn revealed a deck of mid-level stratocumulus clouds, flat and unmoving, clouds Alan Watts in his little *Instant Weather Forecasting* book associates with an inversion layer due to subsiding air and “tropical airstreams that have all dried out.”
In other words, we’d sailed into an area of high pressure. No big surprise; the forecast had been calling for it for days.
By early afternoon, winds had eased to four knots and the sky cleared to a soft, eggshell blue. The sea became still, save for a tired, old swell from the south that was shuffling out its last days in the Pacific basin.
The dry warmth, the lack of wind, the pale, cloudless sky; a calm sea gently rolling like deep blue dunes. The quiet. All speak to me of desert.
It is on days like today that the ocean feels vast. On other days I know it is vast, but if the wind is up, the seas create a sense of closeness, and one is busy sailing. Not today. Today, when on deck, I feel I can see forever. And what I see is an endless plain of the deepest, most engaging blue.
If I were to stop, to think of distances and the depths below and all that could happen between here and there, I might become anxious. But I don’t. Mo knows how to float and wind will return. And so I am free to enjoy the delicious solitude the sea offers up and to pretend that I am flirting with the infinite.
And then I go back to work. Today: dried out the anchor locker; rove the new topnlift lines; removed a plexiglass window covering that had fogged over; now dried and resealed; gave my head and beard a wash.
And next it’s time for a bottom scrub before the pacific get any colder
Enjoy as it’s a dry cold one up here in the NW…
I’m not officially a sailor (yet), and I think I’d have no problem jumping into the deep blue with the right eyewear to scrub the bottom, but it’s just the doing it by oneself that freaks me out. I figure I’d have to take down the sails (obviously) and lash the tiller to one side so that the boat doesn’t accidentally sail away on windage alone. And trail a line for good measure. Am I paranoid?
Randall, I have a photo that my husband, Andy, took when in the same position back in 1967 on his way to Cape Horn. He jumped over the side with his waterproof old Niconis camera, and swam about 100 feet from CARRONADE and took a photo of that infinite shining blue sea, large lazy swell sometimes blocking the hull from his view, with the limp sails contrasted against the pale blue cloudless sky. Of course he felt the wind would never come back. But was glad to swim back and get back aboard before it did!!!! When you get home I will send you the photo! P.S. did you know that Richie Goldstein, whom you met in SF , lives on my street here in Fort Lauderdale, and yesterday we were both sharing our love of your Logs that we both look forward to?