The Land of the Wanderer

Day 156/34

Noon Position: 13 38S 155 38W

Course/Speed: N6

Wind: E12

Bar: 1012, falling

Sea: E5

Sky: Overcast (finally squalls moving off)

Cabin Temperature: 85

Water Temperature: 85

Sail: Working jib, main, full, close reaching

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 120

Miles this leg: 4,097

Avg. Miles this leg: 121

Miles since departure: 21,341

It happened just before midnight, when we passed unawares into another country.  The sky had been clear, save a few, small cumulus going quietly about their business, like sheep nibbling absently at grass tips while awaiting dawn. A steady wind from the east, as one would expect, and Mo sure-footing her way north.

Then, from over the windward horizon, a wanderer. A giant. Just one. Tall and broad and lit starkly white by the three quarter moon; its column of rain, black against the glow of sky. It’s upper reaches swelled visibly as it inhaled from the hot ocean; long tentacles moved outward from its center as if to gather in even more to the black maw. And the rain column thickened.

As it overtook Mo, winds accelerated from a mean of 15 to 30 knots and a heavy rain beat on the dodger. I freed the main sheet and let Mo charge. The deluge didn’t last long, maybe twenty  minutes, and as it diminished to a drizzle so the wind slackened and then vanished entirely. The wanderer had gorged on our wind, leaving the sea to heave its complaint. Mo wallowed.

Wind had just filled back in when I spied another wanderer to the north and one beyond just topping the horizon. They came on as had the first. Rain. Wind raced; the rigging roared; then calm.

Then there were two more, and a third to the south. Then I could see five at one time in various quadrants to windward. By three o’clock the moon began to set, and now the wanderers came as a herd.

I could no longer stand watch over the main sheet but threw in double reefs. Mo raced during the gales and made slow way during the transitions. I tried to get some sleep.

By dawn the wanderers had thickened so that the transitions between them were blurred. There was no sky; only wanderers interconnected. Often the only way to distinguish one from the other was the dark pillar of rain. But the pattern was the same; rain, high wind then none, and through which we made our slow and halting way.

I’d had a sense something was in the offing. The air had been thick and hot, and the water temperature, for the first time, had matched that of the cabin (85 degrees). All day the barometer had dropped slowly. One would expect this as we are moving from an area of high pressure (the Horse Latitudes) to one of low (the Doldrums), but the fall should be gradual and over many days, not a point every two hours.

It made me uneasy. I worried about the possibility of a hurricane, but no. Wrong time of year, and such a storm would not come from the east. Then what?

I don’t know. But the wanderer’s wind was warm, uncomfortably warm, and its humidity, palpable.

All morning the pattern continued and only in afternoon did the herd thin. At four o’clock, we negotiated our last wanderer and moved back into clear skies, dry, cool skies with here and there a small cumulus cloud, nibbling at what the wanderers left behind.

—

Given all the humidity, even without the intense wet from the above rash of squalls, I’m having trouble keeping skin on my hands, especially the right. Two and three layers, gone.