Patience
Day 128/4
Noon Position: 46 21S 160 17E
Course/Speed: E7
Wind: SSW 25
Bar: 1013
Sea: SW5
Sky: Clear with puffy cumulus
Cabin Temperature: 59
Water Temperature: 52
Sail: Working jib, 3 reefs; main, 2 reefs, close hauled
Noon to Noon Miles Made Good: 143
Miles this leg: 571
Avg. Miles this leg: 143
Miles since departure: 17,826
The sea does not teach patience so much as demand it as a requisite for survival, this in the context of the last day, whose Southern Ocean has been her usual fitful self. Wind is 25, then 12, then 30, then 20; then it’s N then NW, all in the course of a few hours. In reef, out reef, tune sail in, tune it out; converse with Monte re pointing strategy.
Just when all is set, it changes.
When wind finally settled in today, the direction was nearly south at 25 knots. We’ve been close hauled all day, and Mo is one wet puppy.
On the up side, we’ve had sun today, sun that turned towering cumulus into great white cities in the sky; sun that gave the sea that deep obsidian and made the waves look like rolling, liquid boulders.
And we are fast. At current rate we should reach an imaginary way point between New Zealand and the Snares Islands in two days. That is, if we can avoid the coming calm.
Getting colder the further south we get. Temps in the cabin failed to reach 60 today.
But soon we will be headed north once again.
It amazes me how you keep your mind and creative energy so lively at sea. I think I, and many others, tend to fall into something akin to a trance – acutely tuned in to some things, those that matter at sea, and just sort of drifting and dreaming on all the rest. Your writing shows a crisp alert mind seemingly all the time. How do you do it?
Wonder if you would share your reasoning on why you chose to sail south of N Z instead of heading NE up the Tasman Sea?
I love following your voyage Randall! Thank you for sharing! I love what you say here about the sea demanding patience…SO true!