no more refrigerator.

at sea
18.33.00 N
061.33.45 W
27.09.08
1000
s/y nina
__________________________________



well well well. i'd have to say the crossing this time has been a lot more like work and less like an adventure, which is not to say intolerable, but perhaps also not less great. the parts of each day devoted to watch or the business of sailing are still a treat and i am yet impressed with the learning curve activity. it's been a few days now. ankle is still a bit of a drag. i have finally felt like i should ease off on the icing. still monitoring its strength and i am tending to favour it slightly. not that there are any long distance treks to contend with.

fancy gps satellite thingy that shows our route from france to BVI

actually, not terribly accurate. i believe we
were a little further south and not so much in a straight line at all.



up the mast part seven went way better than the previous versions. the main halyard got accomplished with a significantly less costly fee, some abrasion and far less bruising. i anchored myself in exactly the opposite fashion from the first failed attempt and was rewarded with a worn out spot on my wrist and now have matching heels. though the new blistered section is not as dramatic as the one on my right heel from last week. they are similar now in size and location. another half hour spent at 70'. this time with the direction of waves and in significantly less wind. i did question why i went up there at one point. 'why am i here?' i thought. 'foolish? stubborn? sadomasochist?'


the pristine galley

the fridge gets turned off today. it seems that we're stepping up the 'get-out-of-the-boat' programme and it doesn't seem to me that we're going to get three days to clean the boat and so on on in virgin gorda. also we're starting to lose all of our food. which means that we don't eat on the boat when we arrive anymore. this discourages me. i can't yet afford to eat in restaurants. and why should we get to enjoy being on the boat, we have only been sailing it for a month and a half. so it goes. let the cleaning begin.

a ship!

at sea
18.41.30 N
046.41.45 W
21.09.08
1130 utc-3
s/y nina
_______________________

it occurs to me that the expression 'at sea' is also akin to the expression 'out to lunch.'

the second of two consecutively mostly satisfying watches. i slept rather very well between them. we've been sailing roughly 6 - 7.5 knots since yesterday evening sometime. that nice wind that we were expecting has come through. watch is usually the good part regardless, and night watch doubly so; it's a better time when the boat's not continually at a threshold of 'time to get an engine on - not enough wind.' when it's at that liminal zone, attention to the instruments is more important and more tiring. as there is the potential for misreading the data. as i am aware that i much prefer sailing to motorsailing, i am aware of a tendency to pretend that the boat is actually doing better than our minimum when it might not be. and then it's also important to be sailing when it's possible to. more than once i have had to answer for the boat doing 4.5 knots for 30 seconds in a row when skipper is looking. never mind that it was doing 5 or 6 knots when he wasn't. the data in the liminal zone is open to interpretation. regrettable that this raymarine setup does not have a graph of wind speed over time like flying cloud did. that makes things real straightforward.


shh. don't let anyone know that this is supposed to be enjoyable.

that'll surely lead to trouble.



a difference in interpretation leads unfortunately to sharp criticism. it's still my belief that it's important to have minor errors from time to time.. that the skipper's tendency to twitch / micromanage / vent / otherwise behave unreasonably be indulged in a harmless fashion. it also helps if occasionally said twitchy unreasonable person makes a minor gaffe and is reminded that we're all flawed and imperfect humans from time to time. there was that thing of always behaving as though you are right, while maintaining an awareness that you're not always right. right? different than behaving as if you're always right. right?



recent sightings

~ hammerhead shark. brownish or tannish colour. 6-8 feet. bumbling along off to starboard and then aft. the briefest of opportunities to see one. unmistakably a hammerhead.

~ exciting meteor. one two three... luminiferous trail in a massive line in the night sky. a bog pop and a bright flash. the pop was inferred and not heard.

~ a fly.

~ the absence of airplanes. this is the mostly empty part. there was some amusing commentary during dinner yesterday:

/ (pointing out the window, excitedly): "a ship!"


\ (somewhat less excitedly): "you mean... out here? at sea?"

truly, it had been days since any sightings.

~ stars: for the first time in a long while it was not overcast on one of my night watches. the moon conveniently rose after the end of my watch. saw taurus, gemini, ursa minor, scorpio, ptolemy's cluster. i believe this was the first good astromoly opportunity on this voyage. the plow, or big dipper if you're not from ireland, is not really in the sky. though you can see a part of the handle as it rotates around polaris over the course of the night. with the moon having been nearly full and in the sky for most of every night, less great opportunity to look into the night.

"but there's a saying, 'when travels are many, experiences are mixed.'"
~ Skallagrim Kveldulffson, King Eirik's Gift, Egil's Saga

more from up the mast. trying to make sense of it.

at sea
18.36.46 N
35.10.15 W
1430 utc-2
16.09.08
s/y nina
_______________________


neglected to notice bruising on my chest. it's a physical record that i was mostly using my right hand to do the work. and that i was up there way too long, while accomplishing basically nothing. when i got down i saw what had been sent up the inside of the mast. it's hard not to be irritated, but there was about an inch of spectra line sticking offa the mousing line. what, no taping the end? we did find, while at a marina that we had to taper the end going into a pulley when mousing a line. and that was not 70' of line. it was horizontal and only about 20 feet through the boom. i feel as though somehow this lesson was lost on my skipper, who also went and had a smoke break while i was up the mast getting bashed over and over again into the mast. sorta feels like sabotage. no wonder i couldn't get the halyard through that pulley.



i thought it slightly suspicious that my headlamp hurt last night when i took it off my forehead. as it bounced once, then twice. then rested in a non-hurty fashion on an inanimate shelf beside the instruments. legs already feel less of a drag. chest feels more of a drag. the spots where the mousing line dug into the flesh in my pinky finger. (both the left and right hands). lost a lot of skin off my heels. i had established some meaningful contact with i think the spinnaker halyard. and there was no way i was letting go, even when i realized it was going to be a doozy of blister. that'll be about week. at least a week. actually, i'm expecting the bruising cycle to take roughly a week. a moratorium on doing pushups. matt had suggested that he got a lot of exercise when standing watch. makes sense to me. i celebrate the beginning of each new hour with a set of exercises when possible. except sort of in the past tense. at least until i stop feeling like i have been visited by a meat tenderizer. some fun in each bicep. and a nice bruise coupled with a stretched ligament limp on the one foot. actually, i guess i was hanging on for dear life. the bruise on the top of my foot is from my other foot, which held me against the mast. rewards for my stubbornness.





it occurs to me that angela from elvis the gecko had a similar problem, but motored to the middle of the closest high pressure system before even thinking about sending anyone up the mast. of course, there are slightly different circumstances here. but still.

i understand that we can see not much more than 25 nautical miles from the centre of our yacht-centric universe. today we're a cloudless zone ringed by a few wisps near the horizon. altocumulus and stratus clouds mostly, some cirrus clouds way to starboard. mostly just lovely. i have invented a shade device i tuck into my hat and into my shirt to keep the sun away. to stave off a gradual rightward shift in my political leaning. or at least to keep my neck from getting too red.

lost our halyard.

at sea
18.38.30 N
033.19.15 W
1840
15.09.08
s/y safari
____________________________

lost the main halyard. so we had up the mast, latest version. ouch.

12 knots of wind. at first we were broadsides and i went off to one side. no good. i spun around the shroud like a top. and was at one point starting to become concerned. i was spinning spinning and holding onto the shroud, my leg got wrapped in one of the spectra lines. i stopped myself. good thing to avoid a compound radial fracture out here. we went head to wind, and i'm not convinced it was for the best, though that did decrease the lateral movement. i'm starting to think that the actual correct way is to head in the direction of the waves and thusly therefore minimize the bouncy bouncy. i have been debating whether to include photos of the bruising. as i'm up there in the bosun chair, the boat moves and i pendulum. is that a verb? and slam into a shroud, the mast, some spreaders. solution: wrap legs around mast and hold on for dear life. keeping in mind we're now looking at approximately 70' above the boat. the plan: simply, send a fishing line down the hole at the top of the mast. it's weighted with a shackle pin. then, simply tie the halyard onto the mousing line (fishing line) and haul away. through the block, down to the mainsail, back up the mast and tie a big snubber knot in the top, and everything will be hunky dory. oh yes, and don't forget to cut the end of the 'old' halyard off of the keeper pin on the top of the mast. and don't cut the topping lift by accident. that's what's holding whoever volunteered for this little gig. what was that about how a volunteer is someone who misunderstood the question?

subtract steps 3-7 and add 10 minutes for each 3 knots above, say, whatever becalmed might be (around 3-4 knots of wind). i'm pretty sure i was up there for actually about half an hour. considerably more than the 10 minutes i'd hoped to have spent accomplishing this task. the dental floss or fishing line or whatever it was skipped off the wheel at the top of the mast. i thought i was clever when i wrapped a wee bit of it around the arm of my sunglasses and stuck it in there to get it back in place. no avail.

i did manage to bang my shin on something spectacular on the way down. i think on a high tension stainless steel cable. more like getting hit with an iron bar. great. the bruising is a little owie, still. i'll be more philosophical when i know that there's no real or lasting damage. fortunately i have acquired more than one owie to fixate on. thirsty.


the bruising promises to be quite fabulous. and i am strangely hoping for light airs. this time some actual light airs. so that i can get up there and complete the task.

up the mast. but a different mast.
different boat. this does, however, give a good idea about
the location of the task at hand.

russ went up for a couple minutes, managed to get most of the way up before letting go of the mast. he swung pretty much all the way around the mast and cranked his back and shoulder into one of the spreaders. time to come down. it was, i think, a bad idea for him to go up there. at one point i told him i thought it was my responsibility to tell him that i wouldn't climb on the knot he'd tied in the topping lift. the last thing i need is some sloppy knot tier falling 70' to the deck of our boat and getting hurt. and since he's the skipper, it'd be great if he didn't profoundly hurt himself.

i'd happily wait a few days before going back up there. it hurts when i walk. my leg sucks. no more pushups and no more situps until this feels like it's definitely going to be not a problem.

shhh. it's quiet.

at sea
18.58.45 N
030.35.30 W
0745
14.09.08
s/y safari
_________________________________

yep. the sun is riz. something about the sunrise watch is actually kinda fun. warms up. transition from needing a headlamp to needing sunglasses. it's warm out right now, too. less layering. of course the downside is that the boat never really cools off. being hermetically sealed and all, air barely flows out of the recesses. though there is a vent system and of course the air con, which we don't use. battery voltage going down quicker than ever, and i wonder how long we'll get to keep our freezer. we're better than halfway now. Martin wrote on the Nick Buzz CD, 'forever halfway there.' i think hopefully not. though zeno's paradox continues to apply.

there's no music on this voyage. use of any electrical device means use of electricity, and therefore eats into the gas budget. and therefore is considered frivolous and we're simply doing without.

but somehow the battery voltage is dropping right regular anyhoo. this seems to be a source of frustration. the storage cells are to be kept above 12.05 V at all times, as they can be permanently affected i.e. damaged and don't hold charge as well for as long if they ever get below a certain point. (around 12.00 V). this means we are running the generator several times each day. we still have a freezer full of sliced, white bread, some frozen veg and stuff. getting to be really expensive bread. i wonder. if only we were allowed to use the oven. there is some myth that russ can bake bread on the range top; so far, a series of failed experiments. he's not given up yet though.

wing-on-wing. oops.

at sea
20.21.00 N
025.35.00 W
1100
s/y safari
12.09.08
___________________________

trouble in paradise. when we do watch handover, usually there's some direction about what our range of preferred course is based on the predictions about weather and wind behaviour. as we do get quite up-to-date data, it's usually pretty safe to predict that our wind will be x knots coming from y degrees until z time. when new conditions may or should apply. local conditions prevail, as they say, and sometimes the weather just doesn't do what anyone behind a desk in some other part of the world thinks it might.

we're on the edge of the range, see, and there's been all this talk of goosewinging, see, and i was even asked point blank if i had any experience with it, and i of course replied, 'a certain amount.' i was given a brief (perhaps superfluous), 'this is how we gybe the headsail' tutorial. no problem. all leading up to what? my directives said that our 'ideal' course was 245° and we'd been having some trouble making 270°. not undoable, but slightly noisy. i elected to go for the wing-on-wing.

not met with approval. after about four minutes, russ came on deck. i was given a royal 'bollocking,' as they say. we're often told that russ is not at his best when he immediately wakes. and usually for about 8 hours after that. this was quite exceptional though. when i assured him that it was not meant to be malicious, he said that he was just 'having a go' and continued to have it. whatever it takes. we immediately undid the goose-wing, went from 248° to about +5 of the maximum of our former range and remained so for the rest of my watch. curiously, we have been goose-winging for most of the rest of today. the problem is that i took too much initiative in the process. no decision-making allowed. maybe wing-on-wing is a bigger deal than i think it is. hm.

in the tropics

at sea
21.44.00 N
021.17.45 W
10.09.08
1900
s/y safari
______________

'tanking along' at nearly 8 knots. a lovely broad reach, one reef in the main and only a wee spot of headsail away. still heading basically south and west. at some point, we'll head west and north, but that's not for a long while. strategy is a part of that. and just the general scale of where we are and where we are theoretically headed.

by now, josephine should be in the caribbean and we can only hope that this one's not too devastating. it must be something to live year in and year out with the possiblity that the wind may one day kick up and wipe all your work away. just started reading 'travels with charley,' which opens with a hurricane. never knew until recently that each year they start with 'A' and ascend alphabetically. in steinbeck's book, "Donna" was on the labour day weekend. so that gives us an idea about how the global weather patterns may be changing in our time. i wonder if they got to hurricanes larry or marvin routinely in that time.

we've crossed the tropic of cancer. therefore we're now in the tropics. heaps of flying fish. they, en masse, spring from in front of our bow waves into the wind. thirty or forty mouse-sized projectiles skipping along the waves. they're elegant and fly like birds; some of them make fifty, eighty feet. occasionally skips like a stone on a creek and doubles its distance.



being between the tropics means also that we should be able i think to see the southern cross. had some dolphins yesterday, more together and also more active /friendly than before. they surfaced right between our hulls and opened their blow-holes. surprise! it sounds like breathing. and man, are they FAST.

at lunch we're told that the cotton-wool ball clouds are associated with the trades. i'd always associated them with stratus clouds. regrettably, i had to stop and ask. no, we don't call it cotton-wool. and nor had i heard the term 'mare's tails' before. stratus clouds. cirrus clouds. easier.

but that's good we're closer to the trades now. it appears out weather window is holding. at this point, that means nothing significant is developing over africa. tropical revolving storms, as they are called, begin as large depressions. if they deepen, they can be upgraded to a TRS or to Hurricane proper. if they're big, they get named.

after a little waiting around in the canaries.

at sea
23.26.30 N
018.45.15 W
0900
09.09.08
s/y safari
____________

been at sea a while. no writing.

file under: 'if'n ya can't say anything nice.'

it's getting hot. new strategy: reading reclined on the floor in my quarters is significantly cooler. several degrees. if i wasn't concerned about possible abrasions, i would go trailer park and line the windows with tinfoil.

the water ration is too low. for a minute there i thought that it would be bumped up to 2L per day. but only for a minute. then russ figured out that teri was unconcerned about being dehydrated. i think when arriving in antigua in march i was closer to 5 L a day. that matthew's claim that 10 L per day per person is a good idea, i'm still not certain. but certainly limiting oneself to 1.5 L per day is less awesome than aiming high. less energy. the idea was, if you feel dragged out, you're probably dehydrated. if you have a headache, you're probably dehydrated.

problem i) i like coffee. a diuretic.

problem ii) by setting a low limit, i consistently fall under it, so i am likely consuming less water in a 24 hour period than i am 'allowed:' plain fact is, we'll not run out in any way, but there's this rationing mentality nonetheless.

and the food. life's too short to eat crappy food. but there should at least be enough of it. starting to feel like the food allotments are also too low. seeing as we're basically in the 'work for food' category. halfway to the other side of the pond, i should hope to do an inventory and evaluate how much food we /actually/ have. i am quite certain we're going to throw a pile out when we get to the other side. i'm not super cranky about luxury items: cheese, butter, jam, sugar cookies. but it'd sure be great to have more pasta. crackers. piece of bread. i know what's here, when we get 'there' we'll have to give away bags of flour, rice, pasta. i'll be profoundly frustrated each time i leave the table hungry. the problem in sailing with people whose metabolisms are not geared to an active life.

there's a funny taste in the water. in soup. in pasta. in coffee. heaven forbid that you'd want to sup a glass of the boat's fresh water supply. i once thought it would change if we flushed the tank with fresh. nope. i gradually eliminated variables. i was cooking with it when i first noticed it. i thought i'd put too much black pepper in a soup and consequently it was all bitter. i thought someone who shall remain nameless let the coffee boil, making it bitter. ruining an otherwise innocent and tasty brew. not so. (or not only that.)

am wondering if it's in the hose that brings the water. i have had water that tastes like a hose before and it's not wonderful. or if it's the plastic water tanks. or if it's the chemical we were told about that was used in the tanks. (we did rinse, but i am convinced though i was not enough assertive about this, that we missed on
the proper amount. at the beginning of this trip we were to flush the tanks with 9000 L of fresh. well, we certainly did fill the tank 3 times. but we should have filled it four times. hmm. and why was i not assertive about this?)

no way to know. no way to disguise it.

hungry. starting to find food loathsome. hungry.


one day on watch, this ship shows up.
i observed it putting up all of its sails.
better than tv.


sailing. not a tremendous amount of wind, but sailing. that improves things more than slightly. far superior to rotting in port. the waiting around was really getting to me. there's still a certain amount of anxiety, i suppose, or at least apprehension about the weather we may encounter. for what it's worth, daily grib files, certainly the sat pics of hurricane ike were cause for concern. though we're not likely to head into anything. we're told that september
is the busiest month. (not for transatlantic boat traffic, but for tropical revolving storms.)

still, we've weather routing, daily grib files, and meteo france's daily weather broadcast. so we're well advised about what is what.

GAS.

AT SEA
31°48'30"N
013°10'30"W
26.08.08
1545 UTC
S/Y SAFARI
____________________________________________

seas are slightly 'lumpy', as russ might say. due to an underwater obstacle, a 'sea mountain,' the existence of which i'd not before been aware. this one is sort of between Gibraltar Strait and the Canary Islands, therefore i have likely experienced it before, though i was unaware of the geography at the time. i suppose it is a style thing, where this skipper chats more about the sea features, and what´s underneath us. the business of sailing is indeed our primary distraction.

thinking a lot about the lake today. about how amusing it is that as soon as i get back from sailing i want to go to the lake. it /is/ what i actually want to do. and it almost doesn't matter which lake, but i have a sneaking suspicion it'd be lake of the woods. as it is quite spectacular in october, based on my experiences last fall. and other falls. thinking about the magnificent sevens, playing the banjo, roots jam, being allowed to work again and earn money, sitting in a canoe and not worrying about not earing money. the cross-country ski cabin courtney's folks mentioned, building the shilling, playing more mandolin. even... gasp, playing an / my electric guitar. i did manage to do some of that while in antigua. i somehow snaked on to play 'johnny b. goode'with the itchy feet variety show and cover band in dickenson bay during one of the many antigua race week celebrations. hindsight says i'd have enjoyed matthew's birfday BBQ more than the race week event. but there was no way to know that in advance. i didn't make the mistake of putting paddy's band that high on my priority list again. full cheese. some of the fun and most of what i do not miss in the least about the business of music. the music of music, as that lovely violist / violinist with the terribly beautiful hands described it, still appeals. the cycles of expectation and disappointment; the crowd pleasing vs. the creative. feeding the ego / truth and beauty.



this is the interior of s/y safari. neat, huh?

i'm quite hoping to hear back from antigua when i arrive in the canaries, a week or so there before the next whatever it is would be probably quite relaxing and regenerative. i'm a little concerned that it might be 10° or so hotter but so it goes, hey? i might even look up paddy's band. i would totally look up paddy's little band.

saw a sea turtle. and some dolphins, but that's almost in the notthing-to-write-home-about category. they're even called 'common dolphin.' somehow i had not seen a sea turtle before yesterday though. it was sort of brown. the colour of wheat in august. i saw it out of the corner of my eye. wondered if it was cardboard or something yukky. just under the water's surface. it lifted up a fin and waved as our boat went past.

*anthropmorhism note:

not really. our turtle was far more likely to be randomly swimming than greeting or saluting. even the dolphins, i imagine are not actually communicating with /us/ up there on the binnacle. if anything, they're around ever so briefly to find out that our twin 44' hulls are inanimate and then they normally quite promptly leave. sometimes play around for 30 seconds or so in our bow wave. but generally not long. it's sort of like the thing where people think the baby is smiling at them, and then the mom says:
it's just gas.

: :

AT SEA
30°27'00"N
010°55'30"W
24.08.08
1050 UTC
S/Y Safari
______________________________________

Another beautiful morning. still heading 218°, doing near 7 knots now. this is considered good, or at least better than average for this leg. running about 80% genoa, wind is constant on our starboard quarter, and has been so ever since we left cascais. a mostly good rest stop, though very little actual rest. it was some scrub-a-scrub and the usual routine i am tempted to say. went up the rig again and promptly sliced into my index finger with a party knife. whoops. blood spilled on deck. two or three choice drips from 70 feet up look pretty nice on the shiny clean white deck. indeed thicker than water.

made 15.8 knots yesterday. with 3 reefs in the main, and about 50% genoa out. woo hoo! mostly we're not in any evident rush. so when we are doing better than 6 knots or so, skipper is content. in some ways, not having the main up actually allows for better sailing, and certainly more flexibility. with no main, gybing is not an issue at all. and then with the main up, it seems like we do better, SOG wise.

it'd be a whole different story if we had a delivery spinnaker or even a gennaker. teri agrees and has a good line on one for the other end.

also, she has suggested that i'd be able to quickly get a cooking gig in the USVI when this is all done. an interesting thesis. one which would involve shaving! i actually never put any cooking of any sort on my first sailing resume. for some reason. i suppose i thought it was merely one of those bonus skills that everyone sort of has. not something really worth mentioning or marketing. and then, it becomes apparent that not everyone can or will bake bread or cookies. that there are people (bless 'em) who really do want the gorgonzola and the havarti to come out when the words 'grilled cheese' are in the same sentence. people who abhor macaroni, and actually enjoy salad.

still, i am not in much of a rush to chain myself to a gimbled oven. we'll see what happens on the other end. i am not less a fan of finding out what opportunity has to say when it finally shows up. half the trouble is recognizing the opportunity when it arises. thinking brifly about in the açores coffee place the day when my favourite deckhand asked what i was up to that afternoon and mentioned that it was a good day for a walk around the caldiera. i agreed and made idle chatter. then she finished her cappuccino and went away. how about: nice oops. file under: ron is a moron.

maybe i should be a cook. whatever keeps a person afloat, hey?

random.

AT SEA
35°36.1'N
011°23.6'W
1000 GMT+1
23.08.08
s/y safari
_____________________


random gear inventory

• plastimo iris 50 - hand bearing compass
  
• weems & plath - extra hand bearing compass
  
• plastimo offshore 105 nautical compass
  
• raymarine smart pilot
  
• raymarine st70 x2
  
• raymarine ray240vhf
  

*though plastimo has or seems to have a rep of being more like the k-tel of the yachting world, i actually much prefer the plastimo hand bearing compass to the weems & plath. the glowy in the dark stuff glows longer, the numbers are easier to read in low light conditions and there's a needle in the bearing window that enables a more accurate reading. hm.

*the raymarine vhf is the nicest vhf i have yet encountered. elegant. functional. not quite a bang & olufsen, but still very nice.

rats! actually no rats. just flotsam.

AT SEA
39°22'00"N
009°32'30"W
1335 GMT+1
21.08.08
s/y safari
_____________________

Danger: Remember to disconnect the shore power supply before casting off.


yep. another idyllic day of motoring. note the sarcasm?
the motoring watches provide less entertainment and more time spent idle. not a problem, on the one hand. cascais is imminent. we'll arrice tonight around midnight and anchor until morning at qwhich point we shall likelt head into a berth in the marina. i am starting to think it's not the case that water is water no matter where you are sailing. and though this contract is better than the last one, i admit to some frustration with not actually setting out for more than a month for my actual or perhaps theoretical destination.

today is the last full day of camp s 2008. while i have certainly been busy and mostly fulfilled, i am certainly missing the place. i think it started in july in dorest, when i realized i'd rather have been in ontario than bridport one morning. up until then i was pretty pleased with everything. and then this delivery came up. suggesting that i would be landing in MID august in annapolis, now known in my head as 'naptown' which is a great nickname, i think. i jumped at this. and then sat on my hands for 16 days in the expensive resort town, with essentially no money, having spent it on gear for the trip, and a plane ticket to france. less fun. more drag.

i am fully ready to get going. no days off, thank you very much. days off are for when you have earned money. when you are broke, you work. and when you're not allowed to work, go someplace you can work. one can only scheme and plan the distant future for so long. so long as it remains distant.

the monocromatic visual field experiment
yesterday evening while on an otherwise uneventful becalmed motoring watch, i espied a yellow flotasm (jetsam?)... floaty thing. certainly about the size of /your/ head, perhaps slightly bigger. it was about 8:21. i watched it at first bobbling alongside and then past our boat, and turned my head to admire its passage. noting the time, 8:23, i opened the binocs to try and see how long it'd remain in view. keeping in mind, this thing was also bright yellow. we wree doing not much better than 5.5 knots SOG (Speed Over Ground). i made every effort to keep the darned thing in sight, and the sea state was moderate, on the slight side. we have waves, and we have swell. sometimes the waves are going the same direction as the swell, sometimes not. and then there is tide. but that's a whole nother story. i sighted our yellow floater thingy and marked the time ay 827. the 'notify the watch relief'alarm went at 830 and i stayed on the lookout for several more minutes. on this trip, watch relief gets a wakeup call, one of russ' conventions. i was in the midst of my little expriment so i dragged my feet. teri likes a bit more lead time than russ' normal 10 minutes. .


a lesson: do no look at the time. do not look anywhere other than at or for the floaty thingy in question. other people can look at the time. rereading the handwritten journal, i am alerted that i did look away at least two times between 8:21 and 8:33, to look at the time and to shut off the alarm. if it /really/ mattered, than that's two times i would consider i'd not want to have looked away.

so. the brightly coloured floating object in daylight in moderate / slight seas was visible for no more than 4 minutes aft of the boat, moving only at 5.5 knots. informative, no? i think one of the very last things my dad said to me when i was about to leave winnipeg was 'don't fall off the boat.' yep. apparently in iceland and norway, each family has its own design of warm wooly (fishing) sweater, sort of like the scots tartan. that way those fishing who might be separated from their boat might be more easily identified if ever eventually washed ashore or found adrift. ooo! morbid!

less delivering. more floating.

AT ANCHOR
S/Y Safari
43°40.581'N
007°36.168'W
2200 UTC+1
18.08.08
_______________________________
In order to share as much new technology, new equipment and new materials with you as possible, our boats are constantly improved. This is why the specifications and information given are not contractual and can be modified without notice and we are not obliged to provide updates. - lagoon 440 manual


it has been decided that getting around the corner would simply not be cost effective. what with the price of diesel and all. 5 L an hour to burn for 20 hours making only 3 knots. no good. weighed against staying in a marina, russ decided to go for the marina, which turned out to be full. so i have learned some about setting an anchor and using the windlass. that sort of thing. i am now on my third anchor watch - actually rather uneventful, which is the way we like anchor watch to be, and have had a relaxing day. yet a relaxing day with less rest in it if that makes any sense. without the business of sailing to keep everyone distracted, everyone was underfoot all day. russ ducked out of making lunch. not really a problem, but it did break things up less. and make the galley a busier place longer. no problem.

so once again, i am in spain. but not really. no actual going ashore. no boots of spanish leather. no sea of carrots. no fresh bread!

went up the rig this afternoon. a big advantage on this smaller crew is that whatever there is to get done, i am the one often doing it if the skipper doesn't want to for anyreason whatsoever. not terrible. russ does skipper's share of the work, but as far as far as going up the rig today goes. i get to do it. of course when i got into the bosun chair, there were suddenly 20 knot winds and drizzly fun to contend with. but a mission hopefully mostly accomplished. my goal, besides a rig check, was to secure the radar reflector, held until now since recently by good luck and a wee spot of duct tape. i plastered more of each on up there and made efforts to secure the bits with some cable tie. used up all the cable tie. used up the last of the duct tape. fingers crossing. it should last we hope until cascais, when we get more of all of the above.

also today, a seminar on buys-ballot's law, dangerous / navigable sectors of tropical revolving storms and good stuff like that.

complain. complain. all i ever do is complain,

AT SEA
S/Y Safari
43°36'30"N
006°13'30"W
1100 UTC+1
17.08.08



Although everything possible has been designed and planned with the safety of the boat and its users in mind, remember that sailing is highly dependent on the weather conditions of the sea, and that only an experienced and fit crew, handling a well maintained boat, can sail satisfactorily.
- lagoon 440 manual



having said all that about the fork business. i struck a fork into a not baked boiled enough potato and crumpled two of the tines. flim-sy.

alas. since i am not buying the flatware, i can't complain, can i?

watch today has been entertaining, since i started standing watch, the star of the show has got to be this three-masted schooner. a tall ship, square-rigger. it was a wee speck against the french coast (or is it spain? i should check) and it has been a most lovely sight in the meantime. one by one the sails have come out. it's nearly in full sail now. first, a sail in the center mast, in the middle, now, a mizzen mast mainsail. might be called a bermuda. the anatomy of a tall ship is a bit out of my experience. perhaps one day.

we're considered a bermuda rig. mainsail and foresail. ours is called a Genoa, which is i gather a region of italy where someone invented the sail. or whoever decided it should be called that was from there (or something). i am thinking the Solent sail is called that because the innovation came from shipwrights there. similarly the Bimini and so on. occasionally russ called our foresail a 'yankee,' but it seems no so much since we acquired the american woman who owns a piece of the boat.

teri has an iridium sat phone and can use it to get weather information. which we like. she calls MacDonalds the 'american embassy.' which she likes. the iridium connection is actually pretty cost effective; not yet convinced i'd indulge, but she says it works great with a send /receive function. some of what i have been after, i think, is the phenomenon of 'unplugging,'
as leighana says. on the one hand, if i am going to be at sea, then i should oughta just be at seas sometimes. hey?


oh yeah! another lunar eclipse of the full moon while at sea. though partial and clouded over for a good portion of the event.

safari

AT SEA
S/Y Safari
45°22'45"N
004°54'15"W
1200 UTC+1
16.08.08
_________________________


Read this manual carefully before you put to sea so that you can make the most of her [i.e. the boat ~ ed. note] and avoid any damage and difficulties.
- lagoon 440 manual


whew! nice to be on passage again (finally). just getting settled briefly before lunch - a short pretend-nap, not so much an actual nap, but no worries. happy days, hey?

lost one of our instrument panels, regrettably. the one below decks, by our nav table.

lost a furling line, when it jammed its sorry self between a pulley wheel and its housing (or 'cage').
the boat comes from the factory with this covery thing that regrettably effectively obscures the view of the furling line skipping out of place. so now it's bare spectra, the sheath has been fully pulled off. the fellows in carriacou would say 'that will be not a problem' and continue to sail on it. the strength of the rope is in the core, not the sheath so they are mostly right. but the feeling of taking an unnecessary risk would tend to not leave me at least. and, seeing as we're not in carriacou, the sacrifice furling is being replaced with the factory furling line. one thing that happens with this delivery contract is that the lines are all replaced with cheaper, shittier lines for the ocean crossing. which is extra good, because when we're in 4000m of water and 1000 km from land in any direction, something breaks we have a replacement. (several replacements!)

and at the moment we're headed for france. are we supposed to be headed for france?

sail	area in square metres
full main	71.30 m2
first reef	59.10 m2
second reef	44.20 m2
third reef	29.46 m2

no. we're headed /from/ france, around cape finisterre - the so-called 'cape of death.' we're reached the blue part. just off the edge of the continental shelf and into the deep water. finisterre takes us down the coast of spain toward... cascais. it's not a dread thing; yet i think i might be just fine without seeing the sights again. they're fine and i know at least where everything mostly is.

a funny thing about this current crop of sailors, since we left (or should i say, since i left the caribbean, it seems like there are no 'young' people sailing. the demographic includes an large number of early retirees and a few under-40s, even fewer under-30s. i suppose, unless you're working in the luxury yacht i.e. service industry, you'd be either a delivery captain / crew or necessarily independently wealthy to be sailing up and down the spanish coast.

on this delivery, one of the owners is aboard, actually interesting in a way. i have heard that there's a rule about doing deliveries with the owner aboard. teri works hard, has sailing skills, and a great attitude. she's here to learn about the process and about the boat. this is her first atlantic crossing. a graet thing. we're still a crew of three so it's myself, russ and teri. chris went off to açores to do a delivery to ft. lauderdale. looks to me like i wouldn't be able to get back to canada before october at the very earliest, sort of defeating the purpose - if the purpose was to get to the SJR job teaching canoeing in pinawa bay at the end of sept. we'll see how things go on the next leg, but so far no delivery i know of has been early.

this vessel is a Lagoon 440 catamnaran. two refrigerators, 4 ensuite cabins and two forward berths. there's even airconditioning, but i certweainly don't expect that we'll be using it on delivery. like the 'fruits de mer' boat, the interior is covered in stylish cardboard, indoor/outdoor (grey) carpet and lovely orange plastic tape.

i'm glad-a i brought:

~ a cup. the one i found in the hot water shed(TM) when doing close a few years back.
~ chopsticks. these improve things more than slightly. unlike norm, i don't have a favourite fork, but i do appreciate and prefer a heavy 'nice' one to the flimsy excusese for a fork that we have aboard. i am pleased they're not plastic.

at sea
20.21.00 N
025.35.00 W
1100
s/y safari
12.08.08
___________________________

trouble in paradise. when we do watch handover, usually there's some direction about what our range of preferred course is based on the predictions about weather and wind behaviour. as we do get quite up-to-date data, it's usually pretty safe to predict that our wind will be x knots coming from y degrees until z time. when new conditions may or should apply. local conditions prevail, as they say, and sometimes the weather just doesn't do what anyone behind a desk in some other part of the world thinks it might.

we're on the edge of the range, see, and there's been all this talk of goosewinging, see, and i was even asked point blank if i had any experience with it, and i of course replied, 'a certain amount.' i was given a brief (perhaps superfluous), 'this is how we gybe the headsail' tutorial. no problem. all leading up to what? my directives said that our 'ideal' course was 245° and we'd been having some trouble making 270°. not undoable, but slightly noisy. i elected to go for the wing-on-wing.

not met with approval. after about four minutes, russ came on deck. i was given a royal 'bollocking,' as they say. we're often told that russ is not at his best when he immediately wakes. and usually for about 8 hours after that. this was quite exceptional though. when i assured him that it was not meant to be malicious, he said that he was just 'having a go' and continued to have it. whatever it takes. we immediately undid the goose-wing, went from 248° to about +5 of the maximum of our former range and remained so for the rest of my watch. curiously, we have been goose-winging for most of the rest of today. the problem is that i took too much initiative in the process. no decision-making allowed. maybe wing-on-wing is a bigger deal than i think it is. hm.

hm.

at sea
39.03.45 N
011.56.00 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
25.07.08
2000 UTC+1
_______________________



~the neighbourhood in cascais



russ has attempted fishing. bought a heavy duty dyneema line and a windy thing. no fishin' poles here, mate. this is the old fashioned way. i look forward to seeing this.

aparently cascais is a suburb (at least nowadays) of lisboa, and we're possibly there until tuesday, depending on what the portuguese rep from fontaine-pajot says.

MOUNTING THE WINCH:
Warning: Couple the centering between mounting plate (14) and gear box (13) by hands supporting the gear box from down below into the centering while someone else tights bolts (12) from above.



useful stuff.

buys-ballot's law: to determine the centre of a depression (low atmospheric pressure). face true wind. right arm extend 90 degrees from your nose. that's the centre of the depression as wind activity in the northern hemisphere is anti-clockwise, as we say in Ol' Blighty.

the sunbath

at sea
39.23.45 N
012.34.30 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
25.07.08
_______________________

new watch rota to be in effect after cascais. what i have gleaned from the grapevine is that we'll be there for the wknd. woo. this does potentially add a week. still, sailing is sailing, and water is water wherever it is.

my little plan of putting in and shaking out 20 or 30 reefs is coming to fruition. regrettably, the reason for the change in watch rota is nearly the same as the reason i have so much opportunity to perform the machanics of sailing. our deckhand is a little less experienced with the actual sailing stuff than our skipper wishes. on a boat with more crew this would be, as they say, not a problem, when a crew of 3 is doing an atlantic crossing, everyone is 'on' nearly all the time. things are getting smoother, but we're still working at getting the bugs out of the process. mostly i am very happy to be radically accelerating the learning curve. but this isn't terribly relaxing or anything.


right. so the new development is that dude is no longer on watch at night.

CAUTION: NOT TO GO UP ON THE SUNBATH IN NAVIGATION

wee beadies

at sea
40.15.30 N
014.05.45 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
24.07.08
_______________________


uh-oh. trouble in paradise. we are headed for cascais, portugal. as there was water coming in the engine room through a wee hole. our yanmar 55 hp diesel engine sits atop a 'plinth,' and though i am not 100% certain quite what a plinth is, both of our yanmar units sit on 'em. the plinth is held in place by, i believe, great gobs of 5200 and then there's this wee beadie of salt water beading through it. so 'skip' contacted the delivery company forthwith and word is we turn around and head straight back to the continent. at least we are comparitively kicking ass in terms of the actual sailing bit, though we are actually headed /away/ from our destination. i made 10 knots for a good long while this afternoon and had decided to give my watch relief an extra half an hour sleep. on this vessel, one wakes the watch relief 10-15 min in advance of the handover. though now that i am in the routine, i have been waking early. i actually went to my dog watch last night a full hour early (by mistake). it was fine, though i was slightly less patient with the relief's 'island time' approach to the latest handover. at 620 AM we finished manually pumping the engine bay dry. this only takes a few minutes. no more sleepy-inny, if it's gonna go like that.

not sure what happens when we're in cascais, except that shower, laundry and a trip to super-mercado are in order. as well as, i hope, some new english books. i have nearly exahausted the latest and greatest... 'the last templar,' another undersea-archaeology-meet-fiction-meets-the-bloodline-of-jesus thing. apparently, the templars fleeing europe departed from la rochelle. neat-o.

on again off again jiggity jig.

at sea
41.16.45 N
014.39.00 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
23.07.08
_______________________

leaving la rochelle was classic. the on again, off again jiggity jig. i think on no less than 3 occasions we were to be staying the weekend. on three occasions we got sorted out and were suddenly leaving again within 10 minutes of the declaration. had we stayed, it would have been fun. as it went, it was pretty great anyway. is pretty great.



once we got away from the continental shelf the ocean became suddenly blue again. the rich, full colour the paintings try to get but never quite reach. there was one point between antigua - açores when the sea was nearly purple. lovely. you never (i never) get bored of looking at the seascape. today we're headed southwest, skirting a large depression and making about 4 knots VMG (velocity made good) toward our waypoint at terciera. trivia factoid: terciera is portuguese for 'third' and is the third biggest island in the açores archipelago. if i remember right anyhoo. i was supposed to be getting myself there at one point, but matthew decided that we should hang in faial and that's the way that went. easier than transporting a windsurfer by ferry. i would have to say that i spent around 6 hours of actual labour in the noonday sun over a couple days dragging that thing around horta. i am sure it got a few laughs, and i was teased, not exactly mercilessly by les and pierre the tatoo artist from the netherlands, who epsied my progress (or struggle) from their perch in Club Naval on the patio. it was particularly funny on the last day when i was als trying to carry a backpack AND my violin. i did deposit the violin with the laundrette near monte de guia. i was grateful and i suspect i shall take a small gift to them if i have enough cash (or something appropriate) when i get back to horta.

matt did say he could get some storage for his crap, but i had a pretty good idea about how franticaly busy (and how much was realistically possible) everything was right before the owner and fam showed up. as it went, i was still scrubbing the deck wheile matty went to the airport to collect them. i crept back on board to shut a hatch i'd left ajar and retreated, wearing my socks, carefuly wiping my footprints away as i rushed to get off the boat. and i thought my socks were clean! it's true though that you did need sunglasses to actually look at the boat, and it was as bit cloudy that day. positively gleaming. 'too bright to see' as the wise acres say.


looking forward to açores, but there's a possibility that we are going to go to madiera. whatever works, hey?

tagged off cooking detail with skip tonight. that works well. i like cooking and then i have the enjoyable opportunity to cok without having to do dishes. as i prefer. really, it's no big deal but there is something nice about sitting around whise someone else cleans the dish mess. relaxy. thing is, on a crew of 3 there's just not enough time in the schedule for that. still 3 hour watch, but then 6 hours off in which all the rest has to get done. every three deays, the pattern repeats. one of the days is tiring. you are up for dinner at 6 ish and on 9 - midnight. still, it's sailing and worth the weird sleep thing. so far i am right into it except that i am going to run out of books to read before we get 'there,' wherever there might be. there will hopefully be a book exchange, and i'll trade in everything except my precious 'everything is illuminated' book, which i do intend to add to the permanent collection. our autopilot is now in english. we also now have wind- mode. blwe a sheet and exploded the starboard jib car. took some water in the port eng. rm. all that while i slept this morning.

oops

at sea
42.48.30 N
012.21.45 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
22.07.08
1845 UTC +1
_______________________




oops. missed a day. force 8 overnight, so it was a busy one. Also i now first mate, promoted after i think 2 days at sea. Sada, Spain was interesting, though i actually didn't set foot ashore ~and only really saw the gas dock. managed to squeak in a fast shower, filled the H2O tanks. quickly rinsed, and then refilled the H2O tanks. ha! trying out curry for super. we'll see mostly the cuisine is.. not. i see no reason to eat out of a can every day of an atlantic crossing. and so i bought with my own money some fresh veg. also i am the master of disguise and you might not know what food came from which can when it's actually made it as far as the plate or bowl.



the saloon.



engine trouble today. run the port engine and the vessel veers uncontrollably to starboard. ruyn the starboard engine and the vessel veers uncontrollably to port. this sucks because in order to motor, then or even to morot-sail, we'd have to run both engines and consume waay more fuel than is really a good idea. a big problem. not so much en route to açores, but from there to bermuda it could make things rather impossible. mechanics and tech suprt exists in açores, fortunately.

my 'promotion' is basicaly in title only as far as i can tell; as on flying cloud, there's no real difference in the way i perceive my role to be and how much work there is to do. but, there seems to me that there is more of it here, as there are simply fewer of us. and less sleep. speaking of sleep.

all the blue is....is

at sea

44.26.45 N
006.31.30 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
20.07.08
_______________________

off the continental shelf. headed for a point on the north coast of spain. i actually hadn't noticed that the sea wasn't as blue until today, when i noticed it was suddenly really blue. something very special about being in 4000 m of water. not only the colour.

some spouty action after the end of my watch and i saw a whale hanging about on the surface for a little while. slick and black with a (relatively) tiny dorsal fin. white or grayish white nearer to the head ~never say the head proper though. i did have the binocs out and was scanning away. good fun.

put in a reef today. and had a first opportunity to use the twin engine throttle. pretty cool ~our vessel is rather wide. far more spacious, though shorter than flying cloud. (don't compare.don't compare.)
we've got twin 55 hp Yanmar Diesel engines. both in now immaculately clean and spacious engine bays. my cabin is quite massive as well. ensuite. double bed. pleanty of storage space all over the boat. this is certainly not designed for racing. there are more than a few rather curious naval architecture decisions. the cockpit, or 'binnacle' as we have come to call it, is quite isolated from both the saloon and the al fresco dining area \ lounge. probably good if the pilot would rather be isolated from revelry on charter. the downside is that the steering station is totally exposed to the weather; not so great if it's hot and sunny' not so gerat if it's cold and yukky.



A) Electrical Installations
1) Lighting Saloon

For the lighting of the saloon, the 4 switches of order are located at the side entry cooks.

rotating watch is not so bad so far. again no sunrise. my watch ended 1 hr before the event and so i stayed awake. i was rewarded with putting in a reef, in which i mostly watched 'skip' put in a reef. i hesitate to make calling the skip by 'skip' for fear or apprehension that it might lead to each of us getting assigned a character from Gilligan's Island. i think in the event i'd lobby for Thurston Howell III. in any event i am a lowly deckhand and therefore chris gets gilligan by default.



FARUNO OPERATOR'S MANUAL
IMPORTANT NOTICES: The descriptions in this manual are intended for readers with a solid knowledge of English..

s / y fruits de mer. ahem.

at sea

45.37.00 N
002.58.30 W
S\Y Fruits De Mer
0850 UTC +1
19.07.08
_______________________

INFORMATIONS OF SAFETY; file under franglais



CAUTION: In heavy weather, it is necessary to reef as described in the information manual. Please maintain the steering wheel strictly in reverse gear.

now. what this actually means i am not yet certain. but these two fine examples of fine translation have piqued my interest.
it's important toview this business of joining a new \ different vessel as a step forward - this trip will get me well past the 10000 mile mark and thus i will have certainly surpassed my goal of 8000 nm by the time i get 'back.'

has

i pod, car stereo

4 ensuite cabins
i.e. each has its own facilities

new sails

3 crew including russ aka 'skip' and christian, aka first matey.

12 V DC x 3 domestic batteries, 12 V DC x 1 engine battery

hikim 8 x 30 field glasses

dolphins!

bermuda rig, main and genoa



The extinguishers must be in conformity with the national regulation of the house of the ship


has not

TV \ DVD. No Problem, as we say.

AIS \ Radar. less great but probably not a problem.

Sat Modem.

Kitchen Implements. there is a chef knife, and a sharpening steel, but not the deluxe galley i enjoyed aboard that other vessel.

heaps of fresh veg. mostly cans. i hope this will change. i purchased lettuce carrots, avocadoes, an apricot upon seeing the provisions. i decided that i should not have to eat out of cans 1 day into an ocean crossing.

dedicated jack lines. we're using the mooring lines and i am definitely going to be monitoring and inspecting the knots used. so far, seems fine.

220 VAC

mostly i am going to make an effort to not compare this one with the last one. it's about gaining experience and acquiring the skills that will get me more and better sailing opportunities.

yep.

pretty nice here. enjoyed the I of W festival. the police, iggy pop spitting on the lens of the tv camera. zutons and kaiser chiefs, newton faulkner and amy macdonald. kate moss. camping with the rugby boys. australian pink floyd show. bjorn again ~ the abba tribute band.

'when are you coming home?' not sure, just not just yet. nothing persuasive seems to be calling at me to get back there. when it's time, i'll know.

le toy camera est mort.

at sea
50 04 00 N
04 01 15 W
0630 UTC
06.10.08
s/y flying cloud
______________________
sunrise in the english channel. le toy camera est mort; unless it's just sleeping. i opened it up to change the battery and sea water came out. made a funny noise. when did it get wet?

a beautiful, blue day. we are likely to arrive before the pubs close in cowes. the weekend brings departure of flying cloud and for me, the isle of wight music festival. i apparently have a camping ticket et cetera. should be interesting, as i have not attended a festival (as a participant at least) for some time. i think since my embargo of the winnipeg folk fest started some 8 years ago.

cleaning, scrubbing imminent.


the bread experiment finally worked. tom wanted to make bread so we actually did up 2 loaves, and consequently there's more freshly baked bread than we'll be able to eat before we arrive. soon there'll be a bakery. irony at work. these ones are not a brick at all. not even a little bit. the secret: proofing in the oven with a pan of exceedingly hot water underneath on the bottom shelf. oh yes, actually waiting and waiting for the dough to double in size. and actually kneading the stuff for actually fifteen actual minutes.

next.

what's the craic with that?

at sea
48 58 15 N
08 06 00 W
0650 UTC
06.09.08
s/y flying cloud
_____________________________________

a busy day. just finished a sizeable portion of yummy pasta shells adorned with a pesto made some time ago by midori. yum. lunch for breakfast. fortunately, pesto keeps for a dog's age and quite possibly even improves over time.

i've been reading a book i acquired from richard, mate of Elvis The Gecko - he says that it sat on his sister's shelf for three years and i must say, if it's been read at all, it's in remarkable condition. 'bloodline of the holy grail,' i think written by this modern knights templar fellow. it's rather dry, but still strangely fascinating. gardiner claims, among other things, that Moses and Ahkenaten were the same man. perhaps wildly specualtive ~ this guy even uses erich von daniken of 'chariots of the gods' fame as a reference. this was the dude who claimed that aliens built the pyramids and stonehenge. anyhoo, it's an interesting book and i hope that i can finish it in time to get it back to richard in southhampton where elvis will be residing.

i once again surrendered my watch this afternoon to pretend i was a plumber. you know. loosen the belt, show a little cleavage. say bad words. stuff like that. never let me complain about how much a plumber costs. wait ~ complaining would mean that i'd be paying. and not doing it myself. tough call. perhaps i look forward to complaining about how much a plumber costs. matty has claimed that this is my /favourite/ job, but actually i think that it's his favourite job to not have to do since before he got on this boat. a thankless and not terribly fun job. but hey, quintessentially useful.

after washing my hands a hundred-fifty times, i think 'that wasn't so bad.' yes, it was. and should i look forward to the next time? not really. but if it gets me sailing, then fine.

after the next hundred fifty hand / arm etc washings and a change of clothes, i made chocolate banana muffin cake. more like banana bread with chocolate chip and almond. too much butter, but oh well. that's the way we like it. we have this very fine new zealand canned butter that they have all over the caribbean ~ totally great ~ and in a can. stays fresh, though should be refrigerated after opening. great for baking. i fried mushrooms in some. mmm. oyster mushrooms.

thomas has been very busy copying down recipes, which has been amusing. he so far has aksed me about everything i have baked. thing is, when i bake, as when i cook, the recipe is only retroactive. ingredients are funny in the middle of the sea and one doesn't always have what a recipe calls for. improvising is a necessary art for the transatlantic cook. he'll cook up a storm when he settles in after his travels.


tired now. woke up a little early to offer our ailing skipper a slightly early watch relief. to my surprise, he's taken it two days running. extra rest is good and the trouble with his position is that he's on call in addition to being responsible for his watch times. night, night. as i tend to say. except it's day day. or maybe morning morning.

lucky.

at sea
47 52 N
11 48 W
0700 UTC
06.08.08
s/y flying cloud
_________________________

more learning curve. instructed to 'experiment and trim the sails.' i had a lousy time trying to get the boat to the requisite 7 knots. this business of a forward travelleris entirely new to me and the part where we can set the lateral location of the main traveller is also quite new.

"This is not a dinghy." ~ words of wisdom from matt

no kidding. it's 35' longer than any boat i have ever sailed and it weighs 12 tons. i did have it at 5.5 knots, but with some fussing more than i had expected (which /did/ please me) it was 6.2 and then 6.5. of course, that'd be matt fussing. not me. i recognized that matt would be getting impatient any second and thought i'd head that off and aks for help sooner than later.

the solent traveller, though it was blown (i.e. removed completely from the winch and the line was entirely slack) was stuck. no way for me to know that it sometimes does that. easing the sheet solved that problem. (oh yes, that means loosening a rope-attached-to-a-sail).

we then lasted about a half hour until the gennaker came out. wind conditions less than ideal. i am yet convinced that the only way to learn is to make mistakes, though i am also convinced that the word 'sucks' need not be involved. in the how-to-motivate-and-educate-your-volunteer-labour-force manual, i'm not sure that it suggests adversity and discouragement as sure fire tactics. up there with micromanagement.


having said that, my experiment of not messing with the mainsail's traveller at all worked very well in hour three of my watch. we were mostly or entirely above 7 1/2 knots and though vis was very low due to this crazy fog, the radar was my friend and i even remembered how to set up the VRM / EBL to track an object ominously lurking at 130 and 8 nm. a cloud? that kind of radar worksinconveniently less well in fog / rain / big waves. kinda funny, isn't it. when you need it most. visibility was low enough that i was doing pretty near constant horizon sweeps breaking only long enough to check the VRM / EBL and my ominous lurking thing.

this afternoon on watch we had a container vessel (french speaking, so it was carrying les containers) portside at about 2 nautical miles. quite close, but only a silhouette. ghostly in the fog and barely visible. when i tried calling it on the radio matthew aksed me if i had been in the rum; i invited him to stand exactly where i was standing. when he did, he immediately got on the VHF and started repeatedly calling the ship.

wild. the container ship or tanker midori and i saw that morning was waaay closer. but this time there was fog, so it was indeed best to be safe.

a random list of things that are 'bad luck'

umbrellas

painting a boat green

ra-naming a vessel

whistling

touching wood ~ this one is a funny one as plenty of folks to this on land. the boaty explanation is that on land when you touch wood, the bad luck goes into the ground through the wood, and on a boat the bad luck has nowhere to go. so it's kind of like on shore there is this electrical ground where the bad luck escapes to. Hope McLaren in Carriacou told me that you can get rid of the bad luck on a vessel by pouring a bottle of rum on its deck. Also in Carriacou, they sacrifice a goat on the foredeck as a new boat is being launched; blood must be spilled on the deck to appease the jumbies (spirits). also they cook the goat and feed everyone who is helping to get the boat in the sea. and give them rum.

suggesting aloud that something is working particularly well.

anything green

bananas

well... women. having said that, it's just a piece of folklore (an old wives's tale?) and right now jenny is whistling and though not eating a banana, she did say her favourite coolkies were choco chip banana.



.

the big, pedantic fish insists it's a mammal.

at sea
46 41 00 N
15 41 00 W
0630 GMT
06.07.08
S/Y Flying Cloud
____________________

mmph. another grey morning. fitting for the myth of English Weather - though the sunrise would be a nice perk, given that i'm already awake anyway. motorsailing. my watch relief slept in again and she's grumpy i let her sleep in the extra 8 minutes. really, i was going to wake her at 0615. but i was putting it off, as soon i leave the boat and i do relish watch. so, being selfish, i wanted to slightly prolong it. Also, i find waking anyone quite distasteful, so there's even less initiative to go and do it at 601 AM.

this leg is total race mode. actually more than the other deliveries. anything less than 7 knots, and we're to wake the skipper; most often this means that we'll motorsail though occasionally we'll perform a course adjustment or perhaps a sail change. but the plan is to rocketship right to Cowes on the Isle of Wight and then for Flying Cloud to depart for Sweden forthwith immediately. Matthew has a wedding he wants to attend in Poland.

This leg has less crew, so Matt's keeping a watch as well as doing the rest of ship captaining duties. not so much of a deal perhaps, though the return crossing seems less of a milk run than from canaries - antigiua. rougher seas generally, but it also seems less bouncy-bouncy. hard to say as i think i may be more acclimatized to the boat et cetera.

tom was up the mast yesterday and said the whale activity was most premium - he finally saw his first big fish. of course, it's a mammal and not a fish. but he's keen to see one since we left antigua. plenty of dolphins. there was a pod of about 20 of them that stormed the boat yesterday afternoon. very cool. though, they left right away as we're not terribly interesting. i gather a monohull makes a bigger bow wave and so forth so they hang out and play way more. we're just wee in comparison, though fast. we left many hours after 'minnie the moocher' an open concept racing boat, maybe an open 60'? very sexy. we did, however, pass it nearly like it was standing still yesterday evening. 2 days into the crossing. see ya later.



time for to make the manufacturing of Zs.

boaty stuff

at sea
45° 32" 30' N
19° 23" 45' W
0640 UTC
06.06.08
s/y flying cloud
______________________

apparently tomorrow's task, should i choose to accept, is to put in and take out about 20 reefs, if the weather stays as so. we've been motoring since 0945h yesterday to try and escape this high pressure system - at times the gennaker, our largest sail, has been out. at times away. mostly the main has been out as well, but to little effect. we need 15 knots of apparent wind to fly the gennaker and i think for the better part of my last watch we had 3 or 5.
afternoon watch was entertaining, however. today we were invited to expect a surprise inspection of quarters. the contention being that in the event of an event, it's not right to wade through a mess to find out where a leak is, where a fire is, or what have you. the aft cabins are a more complicated story but on this leg i am in my forward spot. this was marilyn's and before that rose's bunk. somehow i got negotiated out of it an into the spacious owner's cabin on the first crossing. no problem. this one is great though, and i sleep very well here. though we haven't had any heavy seas.

inspection being threatened, i deduced that there was just not that much to do; or maybe matthew is bored. or maybe (gasp) we're ahead of the chore-list. and so today i thought i'd work at continuing my education, sadly neglected from Antigua to Açores due to my little not-being-able-to-use-my-right-hand-for-much-of-anything problem. that's mostly or entirely not a problem anymore. about time!

i aksed what i was to learn next, knowing full well that reefing the main was on the short list, and Lo! reefing the main. note taking. diagram making. then a break to attempt the bread experiment.

in Antigua, a day or two after discombobulating (is that a word?) my hand, i happened upon a group of merry-makers camped out behind the transom of some classic yacht or another in english harbour. i think this was the day alex-the-keyboard-player-reportedly-descended-from-pirates told me that i should draw this symbol on my hand and that it would help it heal. he also told me i should come to his open stage and play bass.

en route, i found revelry. at the revelry i met this south african fellow who plays 'jurassic rock.' we played together some and he insisted that i take his guitar back to my boat and play it in my (all of my) spare time the following day. after breakfast, no, before breakfast, maybe instead of breakfast i sat in the shade with a coffee and played 'every little thing she does is magic' and i think 'wish you were here,' though exactly why i chose to play the latter is somewhat beyond me. and then to work. all day.

that evening we had a classic matthew bbq and the vision of francis (the jurassic south african) was suddenly realized. we played some more and entertained the troops with all the hits. 'love me do,' 'lola,' '(don't go back to) rockville' and many, many more. he gave me a bread recipe. i wrote it down. it works. i made it today. not a brick, but a loaf.

reefing the main.



went well-ish. shaking out the reef, less so. but i aksed jenny for guidance which i think was good for all of us. i needed the help and it's good to learn about the boaty stuff from more than one person. all fun. then i put out the gennaker and, taking matt's advice, 'first by hand and then one wrap, etc.' i started pulling the gen out 'by hand.' the danger in taking instructions literally or trying to universally apply information specific to one task. yes, the gennaker sheet /should/ be on a winch the /entire/ time ~ even in 4 knots apparent. it's a gigantic sail and the winch must must be in the way. learning curve.

happy chickens

at sea
43° 38' 45" N
22° 08' 30" W
06.05.08
0650 GMT
s/y flying cloud
_____________________________

whale spout.

jenny said it was the biggest one she'd ever seen; that's what she said. also the only one i'd ever seen so therefore true for me also. it appeared to be coming toward us ~ or across our bow at any rate. then 30 seconds of nothing, so i went beck inside to continue enjoying my delicious repast. boiled egg, fresh from açores com queijo on a rice-cake, lightly toasted. the eggs are from 'happy chickens' i think, as the sign in M.A.Y.S. said.

i think i'd been in horta for nearly a week when i decided to pop into mid-atlantic yacht services to ask if they knew who may was and where i might find her shop. oops. that's when i saw the sign, and their book exchange. the object of my quest. i got 'conan the barbarian' in trade for the Jorge Amado thing that showed up in the Skullduggery book shelf in Antigua. i think MAYS won on that one. but you know. i was in the mood for something... light and fluffy.

today was a good day for the learning curve ~ put away the gennaker with tom. strategic error. oop. we put out the solent just fine, and then went down 40° just fine, but then i didn't waitand just dove into the furling business. the solent crash gybed and matthew popped out to lend assistance / make sure everything was okay / give me hell for not waiting until the course chage was complete / give me hell for not diving back to the helm as soon as i noticed the headsail even think about moving. i was pretty un-ruffled by the whole process and had been quite concerned to not hourglass the gennaker*; on our vessel the main isn't really ever out all that far and and would not be a gigantic deal, i decided, to gybe and the solent is a self-tacker as well. matthew said as much, but having been an instructor and recognizing that a person learns mistakes as they repeat mistakes ~ the same maneuver would be quite dangerous on a different vessel (except we're not on a different vessel) ~ especially on a monohull. the gennaker is still away.




and the flavour of hell is generally a rather mild one - i get more grief about coffee grounds that appeared on the last passage (and miraculously hid until reappearing while on charter) than that. all in, a good exercise to put the gen away and i look forward to doing it (or perhaps anything else this week) right for once.

blue

at sea
41° 15" 15' N
25° 24" 00" W
06.04.08
0620 GMT
s/y flying cloud
_____________________________

oooh. whenever i let my watch relief sleep in i feel so mean. and yet a tiny part of me feels like since i am already happily awake, what's the harm in lettingan extra 15 minutes go by? at a certain point, i suspect i'll become impatient and storm in at 601 am with the fox 40, but until that day, i'll likely tiptoe to the edge of the threshold (no wait. that's redundant, probably i'd tiptoe to the threshold) and whisper meekly. luckily, my first mate's toe was sticking out from the duvet; i managed to resist the temptation to say 'this little piggy went "WEEEE"' and merely pinched her toe. whispering 'good morning' just wasn't working.
strange to feel guilt about waking someone up, yet even more guilt for letting them sleep.

this part of the atlantic is a deeper, richer blue. still fascinating and am i ever pleased to be sailing toward the sun. of course, i'd likely be pleased to be sailing toward the sunset as well. but my little plan was to sail away from antigua. and that seems to have been successful.

today we found the wind we'd been looking for and have finally shut off the engine. thyough we'd been motorsailing which is preferable to motoring. anyway. molto molto. very more peaceful. and from the looks of the gribs we've been getting (this is fancy weather stuff we acquire by sattelite) we'll be getting mostly the same until we reach the isle of wight.

THE POLICE are playing the festival at isle of wight. which is about a day after we are scheduled to arrive. and apparently matthew already had purchased a ticket which he can no longer use as he must now rush to the l;and of 'bork,bork bork' so he can park the boat and jet off to some wedding in poland. it seems i'll get to see the police, perhaps. seems like a good plan, though i am traditionally lousy at being a festival participant; it's been nearly a ten year embargo on the winnipeg fest ~at least as an audience participant. one gets spoiled by having perfomer 'access all areas' passes and being plied with excellent food and libation. still, when in rome and all that. the concerts should be a reaaaal nice time. and i am curious about UK "camping."

cleaned the bilges this afternoon. matthew: 'should i tell you now or in 27 minutes that you're on the schedule to clean the bilges next tuesday?'

at that point i'd already removed the entire portside's floorboards, sponged out the excess wet and had filled a bucket with magic bilge soap. thomas feels that this is a pointless exercise, but i have been thinkin' that if one lives in a boat (ona boat) and /doesn't/ clean the bilges constantly and obsessively that 'new boat smell' might disappear. makes me think of sam de champlain (not the famous one, the other one)

'did you 'ear 'dat? neither did i.'

the same sky

at sea
39° 06' 45" N
28° 06' 00" W
06.03.08
0620 UTC
S/Y Flying Cloud
_______________________________

rats. genny jenny just found out her new headphones fail the *DIF test. and they were new. at least the ipod is still aboard.

exhausted. yet the coming sunrise has given me a strange second wind. as the first light appeared i suddenly thought of midori and my last morning watch. this time i will see the sun rise; though i stayed awake after watch for nearly a week on the last leg of the trip it was consistently overcast.

tonight's watch was not preceded with much manufacturing of Zs. this was decidedly less premium. legs are sore and perhaps tired from a /very/ long walk. ostensibly to see the caldiera, but maybe the walk was more about the walk than the caldiera. the knowledgeable deckhand from Tihama who i randomly met in the coffee place suggested that hitching up the road to the caldiera would work just great; except i am lousy at hitching, methinks. it turned out to be a lot more like watching cars go by in the wrong direction than hitching. and then, it was pretty grand anyhoo.

staying in a tent ~ the entire time i was in açores i was only on faial and mostly in horta ~ was not as super relaxing as i had planned. the camping spot wasn't an official camping spot and was inconveniently located. around a 20 minute walk from any facilities. no problem. no cooking, so i was pretty much a raw food eater. showers and laundry were also a 20 minute walk. maybe 25. olives, i think, are a perfect food. i like 'em. i even splurged and bought some faial cheese at one point. (ooo! cheese!) i probably wouldn't have done so if i knew what an euro is actually worth. i /am/ getting kind of curious. the camping version of staying in açores was rather cost effective though.

tom's 22 euro room was nice enough, and his 17 euro room was probably quite acceptable. i peeked in a 45 euro room abd though the view was magnificent, i'm told that the traffic noise is horrendous. i'd have to say in the 'we sell sleep' category 45 euro should get you a bit of soundproofing. i'd have to say that the tent by the sea was most triumphant in that regard, especially last night (actually, as i have not truly slept it's really the night before last~ yet it /see/s like last night). the swell was extra huge and extra loud. i admired it en route to my latenight snack on the hill with the stars. yeah.

this fine morning en route to collect a post coffee USB cable for to get my photos out of the toy camera, i was kidnapped and my holiday was quite suddenly at an end. since then, a hundred miles an hour in at least three directions. scrubbing, stuffing, tetris (in the sail locker, with random beverages-to-be-consumed-in-scandanavia, in the tool room), and a quick trip to café peter sport for a bite to eat before departure.

dolphins, phosphorescence, sea birds flying from ilha graciosa. we are sailing along the milky way toward cassiopoea, the special W constellation. Matthew claims that it's an upside down M. we're headed to the isle of wight, so there's that and it usually also reminds me of kelly woz who said, ' remember we are under the same sky.'

if i win the lottery, i'll buy some tanks to fill with fish

in port

horta, azores
1154 UTC
05.18.08
_________________________________

enjoying a double espresso in the little cafe by the laundrette. it will be grand to have clean clothing again. part of becoming lighter at every stage of movement has meant that i have now about half the amount of shwag i'd left canada carrying. sold my guitar. gave away most of my warm clothes. donated my sleeping bag to the carriacou sloop 'good expectation.' acquired and sold a spinnaker, a lovely chrome ladder (which i gave away), a bicycle, another bicycle, a few piles of money (the most recent of which was $40 US i stowed in a pocket for to spend frivolously at the buju banton show. it went for a swim and as the vessel was then doing about 10.5 knots i watched it fly away in a rather detached fashion. there's no jumping to get pictures even of andrew jackson when the boat is on the move.), most of the books i brought (tough call, but i still have 'everything is illuminated,' and parted with malory's 'morte d'arthur').

the next phase is standard issue stop in port stuff. clean the engine room. do laundry. two of us are sorting flights. jenny comes back right away so i'll be back to being a deckhand. different only in title. first mate sounds better than it actually is. it's the same. slept in the stack pack last night. this is in the boom. there's a zip-up thing that stores and protects the mainsail from UV. it's also very comfortable and wins the 'most like a hammock without actually being a hammock' prize. we're going to exit the boat at some point for a 10 day shore leave and at that point i shall endeavour to complete my banjo project. the tone ring is looking way more like a tone ring. i have yet to see a goat here, so i might have to wait until terciera to get my goat skin banjo head. still crossing fingers about that one. the sketchy rasta that slept on the picnic table at the end of my street in antigua claimed he'd get me a goat skin but never delivered. alas.

yep. i think i want one of these at some point

my new favourite toy is the 'eeepc,' a linux-based itty bitty flaptop. it's killer and reportedly only $400. brian has generously allowed me to use it to get my journal out of the ink on the page and into zeroes and ones so that folks can read about our trip. thanks brian.
and tom and midori, and matthew; all them radio evangelist dudes, urban hustle, rico anthony, martin from 'good expectation,' liza kirwan, melinda and the lazy turtle, tim etc. at tyrell bay, gord z and ximena, naomi, bill from the nook, georgina, norm and the pups, valery huffman, david westdal, the ether city ensemble, those monks who made the DT beer with the pink elephants on the label, c.r. avery, all them folks in the evil triangle, our parents, itchy feet, addison for giving Norman a good home, clifford, cassey, bansai and frankie, carl and trudy mclaren, sled dog music, the asshole who robbed me in antigua, antigua sailing week and cavalier rum for helping make that possible, tony at HQ, bob williamson, ray, kayla for bringing us all espresso after espresso, tod, diana fred, julian for owning such a marvellous boat, elvis the gecko, courtney and tara, rachel, donniel, leonard rhodes, david the leatherman, joanna finch, the antigua public library, mister james who illegally seized my passport in antigua, carramia, damien styles (i wonder if i will ever escape having played the rod stewart cover band gig. as i write this 'young turks' is playing. actually, i have /always/ liked that song, but not so much a minor third down), kf - maybe i'll see you in sweden, my new relation who is just born to my cousin and his partner and doesn't have a name yet, diem, the toy camera, flying cloud alumni, leighana and everyone at camp s, and hey jason bowers thank you for hiring matt debicki, by the way.

two ships passing in the night

at sea
38 00 N
31 17 30 W
0625 UTC
05.16.08
s/y flying cloud
______________________________________

eagerly awaiting as fromage du chevre wasa snack baking until melty in the oven. another watch kicking ass under sail, both the gennaker and a full main up. we only made about 11 knots max, but it's been quite consistent and has been a night of nice wind and a mostly calm sea.

foggy day ~ actually low visibility. yesterday morning while i was neglecting my journal and also i think preparing hors d'oevures, a container ship or perhaps an oil tanker passed rather close by ~ nearly alarmingly so. considering their speed and the part where it takes nearly a kilometer for a boat that size to even consider turning, it /was/ a little close for comfort. this ship really did appear from out of nowhere. five minutes ~ inside of every five minutes when visibility is good, a person on watch is expected to perform the horizon sweep, changing vantage points at least once in the process as a vessel on a collision course will remain in any blind spot if the sweep is performed from only one spot in the cockpit. at night we are to always be wearing harnesses. at night we do not leave the cockpit. all safety, all the time.

so midori went below for not more than a minute and upon her return there was this giant ship steaming full ahead ~ fortunately not at us but diagonally behind us. we could see the bow wave. and probably could have read the letters, though somehow the name of the vessel now eludes me. i am told that they are to keep 3 nautical miles away from us officially but i am thinking they were more like one or maybe one and a half miles away. considering that we are two specks in an ocean otherwise empty as far as the eye can see in any direction...

five, five, five is the number

sunrise, but from a different day.

at sea
36 01 45 N
38 22 00 W
0710 UTC
05.14.08
s/y flying cloud
______________________________

O,neglect. strange to have missed a day but was quite wrapped up in a discussion about the five-year plan ~ not a taboo topic but one that is certainly on the challenging side of challenging. i am still working on the five-week plan, and there are some details to attend to in the five-hour plan ~ i'm also thinking that the sun comes up in 10 minutes and that about makes the five-minute plan as clear as could be.

taking apart the shower sump pump. clean, reassemble and remount. the little half assed job quickly became a fix-it-right-once-and-for-all-the-first-time-bud. reportedly the last skipper of flying cloud took a lot of shortcuts. matthew prefers to do things right, once. which i appreciate.

time to catch the sunrise over the atlantic. with any luck, the cloud cover will not prevent that.

not the sharpest knife in the drawer

at sea
32 45 15 N
45 18 30 W
0710 GMT
05.12.08
s/y flying cloud
___________________________

another perfect day though i surrendered my watch to enjoy tearing apart the portside head and then putting it back together again, having removed the offending paper towelly item. at least the process is becoming more efficient. in and out in 2 hours, followed by a good half hour of cleaning and putting away tools. 'the job's not done until the tools are put away.' ~wisdom from bob picken.

this has dominated my day, as lunch dragged its feet and there was a move toward television. i have begun a mending project and have completed what would be most likely considered a 'crap knife' in the welch boat loft. actually, not so much of a loft as it's a basement level garage, but a great place to build a boat nonetheless. i wonder actually if there is a 'crap knife,' though i am certain there is a 'crap saw.'

these, of course, refer to the quality of the tool and nothing else; as it has been said, 'not every job is worth doing well;' and i would say that there are some jobs on which i would rather use a completely expendable knife. this one owes me very little.

entirely assembled from pieces found on the ground in the tyrell bay haulout yard in carriacou. i temporary-like liberated a sharpening stone from our tool locker in the engine room of 'good expectation.' i spent a great deal of time on my 'day off' sharpening and honing. the thing was still not yet a knife, but hey, it's becoming one moreso each hour i spend at it. sharpish, but you cannot yet shave with it.

the problem with the sharpest knife, matthew says, is that everyone wants to use it all the time. so it gets dull fast. at this point you actually can shave with most of the knives here. though there are indeed so many things to do that are better than shaving around here. it's been a blitz of activity since the first day i got to the boat. and in the spare afternoon moments tend to keep slightly busy, often honing and sharpening.

building a banjo, in my spare time