On the Seventh Day, the Lord Did Not Rest
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.
Okay get the champagne ready as you pass the 1000nm mark. And you are going to be crossing the Tropic of Cancer. One needs these markers of success and celebration. Keep it up and the wind will meet you…