lone rain cloud
i am informed that this is not the case. it's the waves that are close to us. though it certainly IS clear over there, and it's not over here.
like sands.
18°48'45" N
49°55' W
0815 UT
28.2.08
__________________________
weather. we're in some weather. not serious weather, just kinda cool weather. since around sunset, we have been screaming along. i made better than 15 knots near the beginning of my watch, and our avg speed-over-groung has been better than the last couple days.
we're in the trade winds, which means that if we look is the ship's log, we find a couple pages of E 5 or ENE 5, ESE 5 and stuff a whole heckuva lot like that. we're essentially just getting the same thing since rounding that big right turn before capo verde. but right now, since just after dessert, we have been in this localized system. the VRM / EBL (the wwii-lookin' radar thingy) says that there is cloud cover about 1 nautical mile around us in nearly every direction and when i zoom out, it tells me that there is nada for better than 20 nautical miles in every direction. we're surfing.
there's this gust blowing at the low pressure system, the rain cloud. the lone rain cloud that's following us around like that character from Peanuts. it's making a wave, and we're on it. that's great, because it means that we make up for the draggy bits. like when the spinnaker blew up the second time. 2 extra knots meant (or would have meant) that we'd arrive better than a day earlier.
and the other spinnakers (there are two) are reserved for race week. the owner says no go. and since the new (giant pink one) spin sail was in the neighbourhood of 9000 Euros, we'll go along with what boat-owning dude wants. it is indeed a privelige and a luxury to be sailing in this magnificent craft. have i made that clear enough yet? the other spinnakers are bigger. but we're not using them.
___________________
more about sails.
yesterday we hourglassed the gennaker. this is a drag. a giant drag. this fish bit and so what happens when a fish bites is we take the power out of the sails, furl away, turn the boat upwind and reel in dinner / lunch / breakfast.
next what we do is reel it in, et cetera. i lost the fish. this one did not want to be brought in. we also lost the gen, temporarily. hourglass: this is when the wind takes the sail and wraps it up all inconvenient like in the shrouds and so forth. i think of this as a bit of a group effort, as i could have been less interested in getting another fishie and more on the make sure the sail is away part of the process.
matt had been awake and had given some direction about how to cleat thing off. perhaps not as clear in receiving as in the sending. the furling line (this is a rope that winds the sail around a sort of spool at the front of the boat) hadn't been cleated 100% and gave up a little. the explanation about how to cleat off the gen furling line was slightly unclear when i'd received it, and i am thinking it's just hard to explain.
we pulled the sail down. dunked it into the sea. that was a little unnerving, but we managed to haul the offending wet bits out again. dunking a sail in that situation is never a good idea. that's in the how-to-irreparably-damage file. anyway, we got the sail very aboard and onto the trampoline very quickly. pulled it off the halyard (a sailing rope, or 'line' that we use to get the sail up or down the mast), unwrapped the inconvenient bits, took off the sheets (more sailing ropes, these are what lets the sail in and out) and had a little unraveling party. as it was a big undertaking, we roused sarah, who was on the next watch a little early. she in turn woke up First Mate Jenny, inconveniently in the middle of the real sleep in her day.
jenny seems to do a nap and a sleep, whereas i have tended to do to equal parts. marilyn sleeps before her nocturnal watch, slightly afterward and sometimes naps in the afternoon. mostly people get one larger sleep and have minor ones. matt sleeps in fits and starts and wakes up for 15 minutes or half an hour at a time whenever whenever and also seems to get up in the morning and work all day on boaty things. that is why he gets the big bucks.
so we had a 'whole crew moment,' for a while everyone was working on one task all at the same time. perhaps the first time in the whole trip. everyone in harnesses, clipped in. when you launch a spinnaker sail, you often have 'woolies' which keep the thing bunched up at 6 foot intervals so it doesn't get away from you (and hourglass) as you're pulling up the halyard (see above). we tied up the gen sail with piles and piles of elastic bands, as there is no yarn aboard. and bits of saran wrap. we clingfilmed the sail shut. ha ha. so then we were all ready to boom! hoist that rag.
the operation went pretty smooth, though i had put an inconvenient twist in the gen halyard. oops. rather than undo the shackle, matt opted to tie the spin halard onto the furling mechanism and move it around my mistake, alas. more dynamic and did get more people involved. undoing the shackle and tying it off again would have taken probably better than 5 minutes and then we would have had the whole crew waiting around for me to fiddle with the stupid tiny knots again.
sail goes up. saran wrap and elastics go pop, sail billows out and gets some wind. mostly good and mostly without a hitch. we had to wind the sheet around the forestay by hand a little, as it did start to try and get away from us again, but we caught it. i ate an apple and everything was fine. oh. yeah. the fishing pole went off sometime during the process and matt said to put more drag on. this i did. and after the sail was furled away and everything was done, i reeled in a whole pile of line. there was a surprising amount of resistance. but it dind't feel like the fish was fighting. it wasn't running away. and there was a whole lot of line out there. reel reel. crank crank. my arm was getting tired. also somehow i had got up slightly early for watch to look at the sky. tired. still reeling.
no fish. saran wrap. at least two pieces on the hook.
49°55' W
0815 UT
28.2.08
__________________________
weather. we're in some weather. not serious weather, just kinda cool weather. since around sunset, we have been screaming along. i made better than 15 knots near the beginning of my watch, and our avg speed-over-groung has been better than the last couple days.
we're in the trade winds, which means that if we look is the ship's log, we find a couple pages of E 5 or ENE 5, ESE 5 and stuff a whole heckuva lot like that. we're essentially just getting the same thing since rounding that big right turn before capo verde. but right now, since just after dessert, we have been in this localized system. the VRM / EBL (the wwii-lookin' radar thingy) says that there is cloud cover about 1 nautical mile around us in nearly every direction and when i zoom out, it tells me that there is nada for better than 20 nautical miles in every direction. we're surfing.
there's this gust blowing at the low pressure system, the rain cloud. the lone rain cloud that's following us around like that character from Peanuts. it's making a wave, and we're on it. that's great, because it means that we make up for the draggy bits. like when the spinnaker blew up the second time. 2 extra knots meant (or would have meant) that we'd arrive better than a day earlier.
and the other spinnakers (there are two) are reserved for race week. the owner says no go. and since the new (giant pink one) spin sail was in the neighbourhood of 9000 Euros, we'll go along with what boat-owning dude wants. it is indeed a privelige and a luxury to be sailing in this magnificent craft. have i made that clear enough yet? the other spinnakers are bigger. but we're not using them.
___________________
more about sails.
yesterday we hourglassed the gennaker. this is a drag. a giant drag. this fish bit and so what happens when a fish bites is we take the power out of the sails, furl away, turn the boat upwind and reel in dinner / lunch / breakfast.
next what we do is reel it in, et cetera. i lost the fish. this one did not want to be brought in. we also lost the gen, temporarily. hourglass: this is when the wind takes the sail and wraps it up all inconvenient like in the shrouds and so forth. i think of this as a bit of a group effort, as i could have been less interested in getting another fishie and more on the make sure the sail is away part of the process.
matt had been awake and had given some direction about how to cleat thing off. perhaps not as clear in receiving as in the sending. the furling line (this is a rope that winds the sail around a sort of spool at the front of the boat) hadn't been cleated 100% and gave up a little. the explanation about how to cleat off the gen furling line was slightly unclear when i'd received it, and i am thinking it's just hard to explain.
we pulled the sail down. dunked it into the sea. that was a little unnerving, but we managed to haul the offending wet bits out again. dunking a sail in that situation is never a good idea. that's in the how-to-irreparably-damage file. anyway, we got the sail very aboard and onto the trampoline very quickly. pulled it off the halyard (a sailing rope, or 'line' that we use to get the sail up or down the mast), unwrapped the inconvenient bits, took off the sheets (more sailing ropes, these are what lets the sail in and out) and had a little unraveling party. as it was a big undertaking, we roused sarah, who was on the next watch a little early. she in turn woke up First Mate Jenny, inconveniently in the middle of the real sleep in her day.
jenny seems to do a nap and a sleep, whereas i have tended to do to equal parts. marilyn sleeps before her nocturnal watch, slightly afterward and sometimes naps in the afternoon. mostly people get one larger sleep and have minor ones. matt sleeps in fits and starts and wakes up for 15 minutes or half an hour at a time whenever whenever and also seems to get up in the morning and work all day on boaty things. that is why he gets the big bucks.
so we had a 'whole crew moment,' for a while everyone was working on one task all at the same time. perhaps the first time in the whole trip. everyone in harnesses, clipped in. when you launch a spinnaker sail, you often have 'woolies' which keep the thing bunched up at 6 foot intervals so it doesn't get away from you (and hourglass) as you're pulling up the halyard (see above). we tied up the gen sail with piles and piles of elastic bands, as there is no yarn aboard. and bits of saran wrap. we clingfilmed the sail shut. ha ha. so then we were all ready to boom! hoist that rag.
the operation went pretty smooth, though i had put an inconvenient twist in the gen halyard. oops. rather than undo the shackle, matt opted to tie the spin halard onto the furling mechanism and move it around my mistake, alas. more dynamic and did get more people involved. undoing the shackle and tying it off again would have taken probably better than 5 minutes and then we would have had the whole crew waiting around for me to fiddle with the stupid tiny knots again.
sail goes up. saran wrap and elastics go pop, sail billows out and gets some wind. mostly good and mostly without a hitch. we had to wind the sheet around the forestay by hand a little, as it did start to try and get away from us again, but we caught it. i ate an apple and everything was fine. oh. yeah. the fishing pole went off sometime during the process and matt said to put more drag on. this i did. and after the sail was furled away and everything was done, i reeled in a whole pile of line. there was a surprising amount of resistance. but it dind't feel like the fish was fighting. it wasn't running away. and there was a whole lot of line out there. reel reel. crank crank. my arm was getting tired. also somehow i had got up slightly early for watch to look at the sky. tired. still reeling.
no fish. saran wrap. at least two pieces on the hook.
18°49' N
49°43' 30" W
0700 UT
28.2.08
_______________________________
this evening after dinner, i was playing 'andy's tune' sitting on top of the saloon there. half watching the sunset. minding my own business and was half absent-mindedly staring off the starboard side of the boat, when the surface of the water broke and this rather large thing kind of flopped its way upward and then sort of slid back into the sea. it was a ways away and was pretty big, or must have been. for the distance i judged it to be from the boat, i reckon it was out of the water and at least as tall as half our mast, if not as tall. probably as much distance as the maryland bridge is long, but a even little further off than that. the first time i saw it i was all curious and then just sort of kept playing. saw the thing jump maybe 4 or 5 more times. it cleared the water, but this wasn't a dolphin. we've had dolphins before. this one was rather large, and went nose first out. a big blunt sort of not pointy at all nose. sometimes almost all the way out. splashy splash, and then slid back into the water. too far away to see what kind of tail. not so much splash going back in.
i thought about getting:
-someone else
-the excellent binoculars
-the toy camera
-maybe a less of a toy camera
and decided instead that i should extend richard's solo-in-absentia as it was feeling good and funky and was just having a whale of a good time. ar ar. i didn't want to disrupt anything by trying to document anything. photos of that kind of thing rarely measure up to the memory part anyhow.
i do realize that we were moving forward but thing was far enough away that we were't actually passing it quickly or anything. in the next song, i kept an eye peeled. the following song i thought, oh, i should look aft slightly as we are moving forward (and i think at the time doing about 9 knots, so at a decent clip). perhaps this one likes andrew ross, i thought and dug out the sew buttons tune. as i have never been forced to sing that one at gunpoint or anything*, the beginning of the third verse rather eludes me. this is why we have singers in the world. or one aspect of why: the singer person remembers words. regardless, no more fishy.
*like that would help.
49°43' 30" W
0700 UT
28.2.08
_______________________________
this evening after dinner, i was playing 'andy's tune' sitting on top of the saloon there. half watching the sunset. minding my own business and was half absent-mindedly staring off the starboard side of the boat, when the surface of the water broke and this rather large thing kind of flopped its way upward and then sort of slid back into the sea. it was a ways away and was pretty big, or must have been. for the distance i judged it to be from the boat, i reckon it was out of the water and at least as tall as half our mast, if not as tall. probably as much distance as the maryland bridge is long, but a even little further off than that. the first time i saw it i was all curious and then just sort of kept playing. saw the thing jump maybe 4 or 5 more times. it cleared the water, but this wasn't a dolphin. we've had dolphins before. this one was rather large, and went nose first out. a big blunt sort of not pointy at all nose. sometimes almost all the way out. splashy splash, and then slid back into the water. too far away to see what kind of tail. not so much splash going back in.
i thought about getting:
-someone else
-the excellent binoculars
-the toy camera
-maybe a less of a toy camera
and decided instead that i should extend richard's solo-in-absentia as it was feeling good and funky and was just having a whale of a good time. ar ar. i didn't want to disrupt anything by trying to document anything. photos of that kind of thing rarely measure up to the memory part anyhow.
i do realize that we were moving forward but thing was far enough away that we were't actually passing it quickly or anything. in the next song, i kept an eye peeled. the following song i thought, oh, i should look aft slightly as we are moving forward (and i think at the time doing about 9 knots, so at a decent clip). perhaps this one likes andrew ross, i thought and dug out the sew buttons tune. as i have never been forced to sing that one at gunpoint or anything*, the beginning of the third verse rather eludes me. this is why we have singers in the world. or one aspect of why: the singer person remembers words. regardless, no more fishy.
*like that would help.
18°43" N
46°22" W
0645 UT
27.2.08
_______________________
broke my sunglasses. and i thought they'd go for a swim. i was getting all intimate with ferdinand diesel and slipped. i cut my leg on a jubilee clip and i think got a slightly less than significant bruise, and broke my sunglasses. sunglasses don't heal themselves, so that's the only real drag. another engine room afternoon was great except for that.
changed my strings. it's like playing another instrument. the old ones ryan the aussie put on in august i think sitting on the steps of the lodge. it's louder. hee hee. tonight was overcast, though the moon is finally rising later and at least part of my watch will be without the moon, which is now about half and 'it's laying on its back,' as jenny said when we were in france.
i am struck by the angle at which i see the crescent. reading in the celstial navigation training manual, there's a lot to get your head around. really funny stuff like:
101. All the heavenly bodies are at very large distances from the Earth, varying from tens of thousands of miles in the case of the Moon to millions of light years in the case of stars and planets. It is however convenient for the Navigator to think of of these distances as equaln so that the heavenly bodies can be considered to lie on an imaginary ball with the Earth at its centre. This ball is known as the CELESTIAL SPHERE.
202. In practice we know that the Earth rotates around on its axis as it orbits the sun. However it is convenient to think of the situation as seen by an observer on Earth - a stationary Earth with a celestial sphere rotating overhead.
recently i was asked if i'd seen the 'Lion King' and, actually, i haven't. apparently the stars, according to that film, are fireflies trapped in black sticky stuff. shades of the Truman Show.
Hm.
so last night i slept out on the foredeck and thought that the angle at which i view seven sisters and orion here compared to the angle from which i view them from the dining hall deck at the end of august gives me an idea just how big this planet we're on actually is. (long sentence of the day). yes, i still prefer to sleep with my head facing North. so the astounding part of all this is that like kelly (louis!) says:
we are still under the same sky.
46°22" W
0645 UT
27.2.08
_______________________
broke my sunglasses. and i thought they'd go for a swim. i was getting all intimate with ferdinand diesel and slipped. i cut my leg on a jubilee clip and i think got a slightly less than significant bruise, and broke my sunglasses. sunglasses don't heal themselves, so that's the only real drag. another engine room afternoon was great except for that.
changed my strings. it's like playing another instrument. the old ones ryan the aussie put on in august i think sitting on the steps of the lodge. it's louder. hee hee. tonight was overcast, though the moon is finally rising later and at least part of my watch will be without the moon, which is now about half and 'it's laying on its back,' as jenny said when we were in france.
i am struck by the angle at which i see the crescent. reading in the celstial navigation training manual, there's a lot to get your head around. really funny stuff like:
101. All the heavenly bodies are at very large distances from the Earth, varying from tens of thousands of miles in the case of the Moon to millions of light years in the case of stars and planets. It is however convenient for the Navigator to think of of these distances as equaln so that the heavenly bodies can be considered to lie on an imaginary ball with the Earth at its centre. This ball is known as the CELESTIAL SPHERE.
202. In practice we know that the Earth rotates around on its axis as it orbits the sun. However it is convenient to think of the situation as seen by an observer on Earth - a stationary Earth with a celestial sphere rotating overhead.
recently i was asked if i'd seen the 'Lion King' and, actually, i haven't. apparently the stars, according to that film, are fireflies trapped in black sticky stuff. shades of the Truman Show.
Hm.
so last night i slept out on the foredeck and thought that the angle at which i view seven sisters and orion here compared to the angle from which i view them from the dining hall deck at the end of august gives me an idea just how big this planet we're on actually is. (long sentence of the day). yes, i still prefer to sleep with my head facing North. so the astounding part of all this is that like kelly (louis!) says:
we are still under the same sky.
the pure tenor quality of the voice of harold.
19°20' N
40°39' W
0645 UT
26.2.08
___________________________________________
today's big epiphany about the sea:
i am filled with not-envy for the particular one of the seven chinese brothers who had the ability to swallow the ocean. it tastes bad.
the comparison test:
a) in la grande motte, the mediterranean tastes bad. of course i was skin diving in a marina.
b) in the atlantic, even in the middle of the middle, tastes bad. i took a mouthful when i was dragging behind the boat. (recreationally).
this afternoon we stopped the boat, in order that the crew could actually swim (and shower afterward). a nice diversion. captain matt was teasing me that i am afraid of sharks, but mostly i was sittin' on the bimini enjoying the sudden lack of purpose.
something about the boat inexorably moving toward its destination. every second of every day, and if the sails aren't making 7 knots the engine goes on.
and then dove off the bimini and i swam a little. even drifting, the flying cloud lives up to its name. if you think about that the 'average' canoe goes around 3 knots - around 3 mph, trying to swim after a canoe that is moving away from you is difficult. it's unlikely that you'd catch up. at 7 knots, there's no way to even consider catching up, sprinting for everything you're worth. we were drifting close to 3 knots i think.
one thing rose e. mentioned was that in her goal-setting process, she considered weighing the value of having commitment and security versus more freedom and less stability. this is a theme of mine. when flying cloud takes a break, i like to as well. all of a sudden, it's just the feeling of being adrift. a rest from the purposeful advance to the next mooring. that's something i respond to well. and then i like swimming and all that, but if it's actually a break, then a break it shall be.
ha ha. rose's ma marilyn said in conversation that in antigua there are plenty of restaurants to work at. somehow i think i didn't hesitate to suggest that i didn't want to work in a restaurant. though i certainly would be happy to work in the week i have there after flying cloud splits on charter. plan is that the boat leaves about 10 days before my flight. a fate i resist: work in a restaurant. i believe i'd much rather work in or on a boat. and perhaps i'll sit in the shade with my guitar for a day or two. working in the right restaurant wouldn't be so bad. it's just a lot of work. as marilyn well knows, she and rose are part of a team that runs one, and they're busy busy.
i still really like working for a block of time and then hiding at the cabin for a week with a book and the espresso machine. and living mostly off the grid. earn less, spend less. and then there's the music part, which depends on nebulous factors; and is a terribly inefficient way in which to eke out an existence, but occasionally has great reward for all the unpaid, nonlinear, non-directed study / practice / creative endeavour. and then the cabin for a week.
'no wait, i want to go to china.
or vietnam.
i'm a commitment-phobic man'
-jacques lussier, from shed your skin
40°39' W
0645 UT
26.2.08
___________________________________________
today's big epiphany about the sea:
i am filled with not-envy for the particular one of the seven chinese brothers who had the ability to swallow the ocean. it tastes bad.
the comparison test:
a) in la grande motte, the mediterranean tastes bad. of course i was skin diving in a marina.
b) in the atlantic, even in the middle of the middle, tastes bad. i took a mouthful when i was dragging behind the boat. (recreationally).
this afternoon we stopped the boat, in order that the crew could actually swim (and shower afterward). a nice diversion. captain matt was teasing me that i am afraid of sharks, but mostly i was sittin' on the bimini enjoying the sudden lack of purpose.
something about the boat inexorably moving toward its destination. every second of every day, and if the sails aren't making 7 knots the engine goes on.
and then dove off the bimini and i swam a little. even drifting, the flying cloud lives up to its name. if you think about that the 'average' canoe goes around 3 knots - around 3 mph, trying to swim after a canoe that is moving away from you is difficult. it's unlikely that you'd catch up. at 7 knots, there's no way to even consider catching up, sprinting for everything you're worth. we were drifting close to 3 knots i think.
one thing rose e. mentioned was that in her goal-setting process, she considered weighing the value of having commitment and security versus more freedom and less stability. this is a theme of mine. when flying cloud takes a break, i like to as well. all of a sudden, it's just the feeling of being adrift. a rest from the purposeful advance to the next mooring. that's something i respond to well. and then i like swimming and all that, but if it's actually a break, then a break it shall be.
ha ha. rose's ma marilyn said in conversation that in antigua there are plenty of restaurants to work at. somehow i think i didn't hesitate to suggest that i didn't want to work in a restaurant. though i certainly would be happy to work in the week i have there after flying cloud splits on charter. plan is that the boat leaves about 10 days before my flight. a fate i resist: work in a restaurant. i believe i'd much rather work in or on a boat. and perhaps i'll sit in the shade with my guitar for a day or two. working in the right restaurant wouldn't be so bad. it's just a lot of work. as marilyn well knows, she and rose are part of a team that runs one, and they're busy busy.
i still really like working for a block of time and then hiding at the cabin for a week with a book and the espresso machine. and living mostly off the grid. earn less, spend less. and then there's the music part, which depends on nebulous factors; and is a terribly inefficient way in which to eke out an existence, but occasionally has great reward for all the unpaid, nonlinear, non-directed study / practice / creative endeavour. and then the cabin for a week.
'no wait, i want to go to china.
or vietnam.
i'm a commitment-phobic man'
-jacques lussier, from shed your skin
one more colour.
20°35' 30" N
41°30' W
0700 UT
25.2.08
___________________________
this afternoon i stoppd briefly en route to the tool hatch and decided that the ocean is reallly... blue.
not just sort of blue. but blue blue, and as far as you can see in every direction for days and days.
here's one. google maps accepts lats and longs. so i should put a link to the google maps thing. or maybe google earth, but less people use that than the maps thing i think. also, if i write the word google many times, perhaps google will like me better and aweard me with a higher google ranking, or perhaps some kind of google points. we watched a film the other day in which the word 'google' came up lilke three times in the first half hour. i wonder how much they paid for that one. product placement is indeed the way of the future.
got a bit of a sunburn. sorry, winnipeg. not gloating, just saying. oops on the burn. i was enjoying the afternoon more than usual. or more outside than usual. my noctuarnal watch usually has me in the don't need to be in the sun but there i was in the sun and only partially suncreened. d-uh. well. on the plus side, there's some great moisturizer on the boat that is for the inevitable drag of not using enough of the boat's sunscreen.
spin sail repair was a bomb. it lasted maybe 15 minutes and then tore in the spot that was repaired before by the pro dudes. the one marilyn did today by hand seemed to have held just fine. but it appears that the patch was UV damaged or something. reminds me of ripsalot, the fly on lise brown's 6 wk in 2002. ultraviolet damage makes me sad.
so the plus side might be that i can make som hammocks out of the remnants. and spinnaker sails are HUGE. so i'd be able to make a hammock for everyone on the boat, matt says: 'and then sell the rest to tourists in antigua.' ha ha. or possibly make a sun canopy for the front part of the boat. i'd also consider replacing the kinda yukky hammocks that i am storing under my mattress. they're just not in the 'as new' condition in which the boat is maintained, and to which i have become accustomed. except for my foul weather gear.
more rheostatix back catalogue today. played guitar for nearly the entirety of my watch. i used to listen to 'introducing happiness' nearly every day. you'd think i'd be able to remember more words than i do. also that scott nolan tune:
since you've been gone
it's all i've been dreaming of
what the summer felt like
to the person that i was
maybe our hearts fooled us somehow
it's all over. all over, now.
this tune must have more (other) words than:
'she always looks like she's leavin'.
but the problem with learning piles and piles of songs is that the words where there are backup harmonies are the words i learn first. and first lines of songs and sometimes of verses. though last time i didn't get a mic and only had one gig or maybe two with the scott band after i finally got a recording of the tunes. that's okay. i was too scared to sing anyway. that would require actual rehearsal and all kinds of nebulous factors, the correct phase of the moon, red gummi bears, another gig with the scott band. stuff like that. also scott nolan doesn't use a set list. ever. so i actually have no idea what this song is called. it's the one in C that goes: 'she always looks like..' scott wins with this one the 'most killer first line' award.
41°30' W
0700 UT
25.2.08
___________________________
this afternoon i stoppd briefly en route to the tool hatch and decided that the ocean is reallly... blue.
not just sort of blue. but blue blue, and as far as you can see in every direction for days and days.
here's one. google maps accepts lats and longs. so i should put a link to the google maps thing. or maybe google earth, but less people use that than the maps thing i think. also, if i write the word google many times, perhaps google will like me better and aweard me with a higher google ranking, or perhaps some kind of google points. we watched a film the other day in which the word 'google' came up lilke three times in the first half hour. i wonder how much they paid for that one. product placement is indeed the way of the future.
got a bit of a sunburn. sorry, winnipeg. not gloating, just saying. oops on the burn. i was enjoying the afternoon more than usual. or more outside than usual. my noctuarnal watch usually has me in the don't need to be in the sun but there i was in the sun and only partially suncreened. d-uh. well. on the plus side, there's some great moisturizer on the boat that is for the inevitable drag of not using enough of the boat's sunscreen.
spin sail repair was a bomb. it lasted maybe 15 minutes and then tore in the spot that was repaired before by the pro dudes. the one marilyn did today by hand seemed to have held just fine. but it appears that the patch was UV damaged or something. reminds me of ripsalot, the fly on lise brown's 6 wk in 2002. ultraviolet damage makes me sad.
so the plus side might be that i can make som hammocks out of the remnants. and spinnaker sails are HUGE. so i'd be able to make a hammock for everyone on the boat, matt says: 'and then sell the rest to tourists in antigua.' ha ha. or possibly make a sun canopy for the front part of the boat. i'd also consider replacing the kinda yukky hammocks that i am storing under my mattress. they're just not in the 'as new' condition in which the boat is maintained, and to which i have become accustomed. except for my foul weather gear.
more rheostatix back catalogue today. played guitar for nearly the entirety of my watch. i used to listen to 'introducing happiness' nearly every day. you'd think i'd be able to remember more words than i do. also that scott nolan tune:
since you've been gone
it's all i've been dreaming of
what the summer felt like
to the person that i was
maybe our hearts fooled us somehow
it's all over. all over, now.
this tune must have more (other) words than:
'she always looks like she's leavin'.
but the problem with learning piles and piles of songs is that the words where there are backup harmonies are the words i learn first. and first lines of songs and sometimes of verses. though last time i didn't get a mic and only had one gig or maybe two with the scott band after i finally got a recording of the tunes. that's okay. i was too scared to sing anyway. that would require actual rehearsal and all kinds of nebulous factors, the correct phase of the moon, red gummi bears, another gig with the scott band. stuff like that. also scott nolan doesn't use a set list. ever. so i actually have no idea what this song is called. it's the one in C that goes: 'she always looks like..' scott wins with this one the 'most killer first line' award.
oh, the fecundity.
20°13'N
38° W
0630 GMT
24.2.08
_____________________________________
some more weather. we blew the spinnaker today. apparently it's been repaired before, so there is the thought that it might not be worth fixing. experimentally we tried flying it backward, as it is an assymmetrical sail and we were using to mostly run rather than reach. that seemed to work well. trimmed up nicely, and gave some good output. alas, we hardly knew ye.
around sunset there was a wind shift or something. read some after dinner and as there was still plenty of daylight, i thought i'd play guitar for a while on the bimini. a nice evening really, if a little windy and even heading into a spot of rain.
and does she ever whisper in his ear
all her favourite fruit
and all the most exotic places they are cultivated?
this evening, dusted off a few from camper van beethoven's back catalogue, always a treat. i really like the fruit song and when i sang (rare) once this summer was asked: 'fecundity? really?' yep. i like that word. i think the fruit song is on their myspace.
a bizarre twist: in the first part of the evening, jenny and sarah watch an eposide or three of 'heroes.' i avoid television programs for some reason (character flaw) and have been reading, playing music, studying a bit in the celestial nav instruction manual*, stuff like that. then, when sarah's watch begins, marilyn and matthew watch an episode or three of 'heroes.' note that i miss out two times on this thing i feel i am not missing but narrowly escaping. somehow the idea of travelling to the middle of the atlantic ocean is incongruent with obsessing about a television program, especially one i intentionally avoided last winter in a shimilar fashion.
we did watch a few movies on the first leg of the trip, and i'd likely still be into that. but somehow when a TV programme is thrown in there i think i should mop the floor or read le morte d'arthur, which i brought and have been neglecting. come to think of it, i brought it precicely because i have been neglecting it. i think last fall or perhaps two falls ago, i decided that i'd read it on saturday afternoons at bar italian with a caffe e latte, from 2 'til 4:30 PM. and then i did that for, like, maybe three weeks. i have picked it up from time to time, but the methodical look at this tome has never truly materialized.
oh yes, the spinnaker. around dusk it was decided that we should put the gennaker away, and flop the spin sail to portside. a good little sail change. i like sail changes. being
that i'm here to sail and learn more about sailing, i feel like being more available for that and less available for television works out just about right.
looks like the spin sail lasted a while into sarah's watch and then just gave up. shredded. reportedly it was not an expensive sail (the pink one we tested near montpellier was thousands of euros... we're not to use it as it's being saved for a race), and so was the crap sail, considered expendable.
fffffffffffffffffffffffft.
making bread. hopefully it works. this is the first 'real' bread experiment. pita bread (!), and the pizza dough was great, though a slightly thin crust is more easily forgiven than a slightly thin baguette. also on the bread front, i made baking powder biscuits to go with a soup today. not half bad. a little extra flat though.
*only a bit
38° W
0630 GMT
24.2.08
_____________________________________
some more weather. we blew the spinnaker today. apparently it's been repaired before, so there is the thought that it might not be worth fixing. experimentally we tried flying it backward, as it is an assymmetrical sail and we were using to mostly run rather than reach. that seemed to work well. trimmed up nicely, and gave some good output. alas, we hardly knew ye.
around sunset there was a wind shift or something. read some after dinner and as there was still plenty of daylight, i thought i'd play guitar for a while on the bimini. a nice evening really, if a little windy and even heading into a spot of rain.
and does she ever whisper in his ear
all her favourite fruit
and all the most exotic places they are cultivated?
this evening, dusted off a few from camper van beethoven's back catalogue, always a treat. i really like the fruit song and when i sang (rare) once this summer was asked: 'fecundity? really?' yep. i like that word. i think the fruit song is on their myspace.
a bizarre twist: in the first part of the evening, jenny and sarah watch an eposide or three of 'heroes.' i avoid television programs for some reason (character flaw) and have been reading, playing music, studying a bit in the celestial nav instruction manual*, stuff like that. then, when sarah's watch begins, marilyn and matthew watch an episode or three of 'heroes.' note that i miss out two times on this thing i feel i am not missing but narrowly escaping. somehow the idea of travelling to the middle of the atlantic ocean is incongruent with obsessing about a television program, especially one i intentionally avoided last winter in a shimilar fashion.
we did watch a few movies on the first leg of the trip, and i'd likely still be into that. but somehow when a TV programme is thrown in there i think i should mop the floor or read le morte d'arthur, which i brought and have been neglecting. come to think of it, i brought it precicely because i have been neglecting it. i think last fall or perhaps two falls ago, i decided that i'd read it on saturday afternoons at bar italian with a caffe e latte, from 2 'til 4:30 PM. and then i did that for, like, maybe three weeks. i have picked it up from time to time, but the methodical look at this tome has never truly materialized.
oh yes, the spinnaker. around dusk it was decided that we should put the gennaker away, and flop the spin sail to portside. a good little sail change. i like sail changes. being
that i'm here to sail and learn more about sailing, i feel like being more available for that and less available for television works out just about right.
looks like the spin sail lasted a while into sarah's watch and then just gave up. shredded. reportedly it was not an expensive sail (the pink one we tested near montpellier was thousands of euros... we're not to use it as it's being saved for a race), and so was the crap sail, considered expendable.
fffffffffffffffffffffffft.
making bread. hopefully it works. this is the first 'real' bread experiment. pita bread (!), and the pizza dough was great, though a slightly thin crust is more easily forgiven than a slightly thin baguette. also on the bread front, i made baking powder biscuits to go with a soup today. not half bad. a little extra flat though.
*only a bit
it's just. the weather.
20°34' N
34°49' W
0656 UT
23.2.08
_______________________________
well. we're in a bit of weather now. not anything too exciting, mind you. weather nonetheless. (when in rome, as they say).
watch ended with a whimper and the moon waning gibbous. though overcast for a great deal of the night, the clouds parted for a nice long look at the moon. wind started to drop and then it was time to make the ship's log entry. midway in there began a tiny rain, which rapidly grew into a squall. marilyn ducked in to grab rain gear and this wind came up from out of nowhere. we were on auto mode and the sails went all wonky and so on. since i was barely off watch, i jumped right in; let the games begin.
switched to manual mode and altered course until we were sailing close to 285°. the sails started behaving, though we were suddenly doing 5 knots better velocity wise. marilyn got back, it mellowed rather quickly and then even stopped raining. course went down 20° and then the wind dropped to nothing. well. 3 knots. and we decided that it was time to rouse cap'n matty, and figure out what to do with the weather's personality disorder. he was certainly manufacturing the Z's. he said he'd been swimming surrounded by beautiful women. ha ha. sorry, bud. we put away the sails and were advised to motor until the weather sorts itself out. matt is back trying to find that tropical island again i think. a more exciting 10 minutes than my entire watch put together. on my watch, i ate a cookie and made soup. oooh.
____
afternoon watches seem to be more about getting stuff done than being on watch. when there are 5 people awake and running around, there's really no excuse for sitting around for the whole 3 hours. i still like to play guitar a little after 5 though. tomorrow i think i'll be cleaning engine rooms again,
unless there's random unpredictable stormy action.
funny thing about these trade winds is that they kinda just blow and don't change a whole lot.
there are some changeable times, like when there's a localized storm, around sunrise and around sunset.
when the weather does crazy stuff the job list doesn't get much shorter, but sail changes and that sort of thing is really what this is all about in my head. oh yeah, the sailing part. there is a lot of work surrounding it, but that's what actually floats my boat.
34°49' W
0656 UT
23.2.08
_______________________________
well. we're in a bit of weather now. not anything too exciting, mind you. weather nonetheless. (when in rome, as they say).
watch ended with a whimper and the moon waning gibbous. though overcast for a great deal of the night, the clouds parted for a nice long look at the moon. wind started to drop and then it was time to make the ship's log entry. midway in there began a tiny rain, which rapidly grew into a squall. marilyn ducked in to grab rain gear and this wind came up from out of nowhere. we were on auto mode and the sails went all wonky and so on. since i was barely off watch, i jumped right in; let the games begin.
switched to manual mode and altered course until we were sailing close to 285°. the sails started behaving, though we were suddenly doing 5 knots better velocity wise. marilyn got back, it mellowed rather quickly and then even stopped raining. course went down 20° and then the wind dropped to nothing. well. 3 knots. and we decided that it was time to rouse cap'n matty, and figure out what to do with the weather's personality disorder. he was certainly manufacturing the Z's. he said he'd been swimming surrounded by beautiful women. ha ha. sorry, bud. we put away the sails and were advised to motor until the weather sorts itself out. matt is back trying to find that tropical island again i think. a more exciting 10 minutes than my entire watch put together. on my watch, i ate a cookie and made soup. oooh.
____
afternoon watches seem to be more about getting stuff done than being on watch. when there are 5 people awake and running around, there's really no excuse for sitting around for the whole 3 hours. i still like to play guitar a little after 5 though. tomorrow i think i'll be cleaning engine rooms again,
unless there's random unpredictable stormy action.
funny thing about these trade winds is that they kinda just blow and don't change a whole lot.
there are some changeable times, like when there's a localized storm, around sunrise and around sunset.
when the weather does crazy stuff the job list doesn't get much shorter, but sail changes and that sort of thing is really what this is all about in my head. oh yeah, the sailing part. there is a lot of work surrounding it, but that's what actually floats my boat.
21°14' N
31°19' W
0622 UT
22.2.08
____________________________
made lentil soup tonight, though sarah is reportedly afraid of lentils. also of catsup, i was informed. and tomatoes. reminds me again of mister boats-is-a-music-band and his aversion to jam. not the aversion, but the character of it. a good day of everyone busybodying. a new chore list got posted and attacked. i think tomorrow is engine room day again.
jenny made cookies tonight; somehow i don't think they are a response to my efforts in cookie making, but perhaps my little plan of limiting cookie making to once every three days (to conserve flour and to preserve the character of cookies as a treat and not an expectation) was not as well considered as i thought. my plan is still to manufacture les baguettes, but inertia is hard to overcome and we are not yet out of the rest of the bread stores. there's them U Bake things that were purchased and they are hard to compete with convenience-wise. thing is, flour and yeast take up less space and we certainly have no shortage of time. not time to kill, mind you, but time nonetheless.
as cap'n m suggested, as you get used to watch duties, watch time is great to accomplish other random tasks. pay attention, then hit the random task. check instruments, and then hit the random taks for a bit. tonight the lentil soup was a most excellent diversion. i hope that it's enough of a soup that it's not in the phobic zone. i made one while we were in france and blenderized the snot out of it. or actually blenderized the lentils out of it. it was more mush. this one i have been simmering for a while and i suspect that in 6 hours when we reheat it, the lentils will be all but mush. if i remember rightly, ms. b said that in a soup she could almost not tell that they were there and could get past the existence of the lentils. we'll see. gradually, it has seemed that the crew has got less patient and tolerant of things like food, the funny taste in the water, that sort of thing.
i hadn't noticed the water thing. when there were repairs being done on the water maker drive belt, it occurred to me that only matt and i were drinking ship water. everyone else had been back on the bottle. i think we bought a giant pile of bottled water before leaving europe and it's become more and more popular.
this is indeed the middle part when everyone is most 'in the trip' and any patience issue is most likely to rear its nasty head. so it's extra important that we're all on top of staying fed, rested and all that. important to take that selfish time and be alone with our thoughts a bit each day and maintain perspective. matt decided after dinner tonight out loud that i was having a problem with the music, which is curious as i hadn't actually said anything about that. perhaps i wasn't thrilled about the genre, but hey, it's just music, right? on the one hand, i don't feel the need to like everything and i also don't feel like it's a great idea that anyone should decide that they ought to speak for anyone else. if i reach some sort of aesthetic threshold, then i'll say something.
soup is good food. i am really appreciating the mortar and pestle as far as the black pepper thing goes. an aspect of living in serious humidity is that the pepper mill doesn't really do it. so the hand version works great, though in this soup, it certainly appears as though i missed one; just crunched down on some spicy peppery goodness.
31°19' W
0622 UT
22.2.08
____________________________
made lentil soup tonight, though sarah is reportedly afraid of lentils. also of catsup, i was informed. and tomatoes. reminds me again of mister boats-is-a-music-band and his aversion to jam. not the aversion, but the character of it. a good day of everyone busybodying. a new chore list got posted and attacked. i think tomorrow is engine room day again.
jenny made cookies tonight; somehow i don't think they are a response to my efforts in cookie making, but perhaps my little plan of limiting cookie making to once every three days (to conserve flour and to preserve the character of cookies as a treat and not an expectation) was not as well considered as i thought. my plan is still to manufacture les baguettes, but inertia is hard to overcome and we are not yet out of the rest of the bread stores. there's them U Bake things that were purchased and they are hard to compete with convenience-wise. thing is, flour and yeast take up less space and we certainly have no shortage of time. not time to kill, mind you, but time nonetheless.
as cap'n m suggested, as you get used to watch duties, watch time is great to accomplish other random tasks. pay attention, then hit the random task. check instruments, and then hit the random taks for a bit. tonight the lentil soup was a most excellent diversion. i hope that it's enough of a soup that it's not in the phobic zone. i made one while we were in france and blenderized the snot out of it. or actually blenderized the lentils out of it. it was more mush. this one i have been simmering for a while and i suspect that in 6 hours when we reheat it, the lentils will be all but mush. if i remember rightly, ms. b said that in a soup she could almost not tell that they were there and could get past the existence of the lentils. we'll see. gradually, it has seemed that the crew has got less patient and tolerant of things like food, the funny taste in the water, that sort of thing.
i hadn't noticed the water thing. when there were repairs being done on the water maker drive belt, it occurred to me that only matt and i were drinking ship water. everyone else had been back on the bottle. i think we bought a giant pile of bottled water before leaving europe and it's become more and more popular.
this is indeed the middle part when everyone is most 'in the trip' and any patience issue is most likely to rear its nasty head. so it's extra important that we're all on top of staying fed, rested and all that. important to take that selfish time and be alone with our thoughts a bit each day and maintain perspective. matt decided after dinner tonight out loud that i was having a problem with the music, which is curious as i hadn't actually said anything about that. perhaps i wasn't thrilled about the genre, but hey, it's just music, right? on the one hand, i don't feel the need to like everything and i also don't feel like it's a great idea that anyone should decide that they ought to speak for anyone else. if i reach some sort of aesthetic threshold, then i'll say something.
soup is good food. i am really appreciating the mortar and pestle as far as the black pepper thing goes. an aspect of living in serious humidity is that the pepper mill doesn't really do it. so the hand version works great, though in this soup, it certainly appears as though i missed one; just crunched down on some spicy peppery goodness.
lunar eclipse
27°59' W
0625 UT
21.2.08
___________________________
21°52' N
total lunar eclipse tonight. i think i may have missed out on the bulk of the total part, as i noticed a crescent when we should have seen either waxing gibbous or some version of full. but it was mostly totally overcast all night. my first comments upon waking were that it was to be 'another featureless night;' boy, was i ever wrong about that one. when i did notice the moon, i pointed at it and jenny agreed it was cool (she wrote that in the log); but it was nearly half an hour after she was off watch until i realized that the sky around it was clear and it was still obscured. meaning, eclipse. it was red-ish not red, but certainly it was dark enough to see deep space objects in cancer and in the surrounding constellations. i pulled out the binocs as the earth's shadow retreated. the astromoly program i have been using on the flaptop agreed that there was a lunar eclipse. fun.
this would mean that there would have also been an eclipse of saturn, which was also in leo at the time of the lunar eclipse. less spectacular without a telescope. also there's the part where we are on a boat and constantly moving from side to side, and from front to back. the humour of still having the level aboard, the irony of living without light pollution. zero boats, zero airplanes. i am tempted to say zero sattelites, but i figger that i am just not seeing the ones that are there. their orbits must be quite high, and GPS sattelites are geosynchronous, so it'd be way harder to spot them.
some photos of the eclipse. oh yeah. the boat is moving, so they're... creative. david ashcroft calls this a 'design feature.'
tonight was a watch entirely under sail. for a change! a great change. more satisfying sounds, and far more interesting even on autopilot.
we're flying an assymetrical spinnaker sail in addition to the gennaker sail. gennaker is like a giant jib (foresail) but sort of different. it's a hybrid of the genoa (a GIANT foresail, usually bigger than the main) and a spinnaker (only used for running, or if assymetrical for downwind tacks); the genny doesn't like to go upwind, and for that we have a second foresail, the 'solent.' i think genoa is named for the region from which it originated, as is the solent. they're both kind of boaty places. we also have a mainsail, but because we're a catamaran we use running backstays and it's not a great idea to sail on a run using the main. and way less effective anyway than what we're currently flying. more sail area = more velocity = more time in antigua before flying home... (flying home to winnipeg. now, that's a vacation).
so as far as somthing significant to do goes, the wind has been moving around a bit; we sailed 241° for a while and apparently had been as high as 272°. 30 degrees is a lot of variance for this part of the world and time of year. even on autopilot, sometimes you gotta change course to accommodate a wind shift.
i think this afternoon we were on exactly the same heading for my entire watch, though i did duck out to make some plumbings. i think i mentioned that i'd been getting to know the water system and playing with jubilee clips (hose clamps, but with a fancier name - UK style). why do i volunteer for them jobs? probably because i'll learn more. today i also made a 12 V extension cord, though i felt as though i was reinventing the wheel in order to clean up a tiny mess. being task-oriented, and having completed the first bit in a multistage process, i thought i'd make some fake cleanup along the way so that the real cleanup would not be so taxing when it was all said and done.
i made a little fine art project out of carving some hardwood bits to cover some sharp sticky-outy bits on the back of the bimini. bimini is a thing that keeps the weather out of the cockpit. sort of like a canopy, but likely named for the region in which it first appeared. this one is rigid, you can stand on it and that's where fully half of our solar panels live. high-tech. anyway, i made a bunch of sawdust and needed to clean the shop a little (one of my favourite activities is to clean up sawdust, ask the shilling people). vacuum no reachy. hence, an extension cord.
tomorrow: affix the fine art project into it's (their) new home(s). eat the cookies i baked while on watch. i hid them this time so that they'd be eaten after lunch instread of for breakfast. chocolate apricot (but say it like ape-ricot).
0625 UT
21.2.08
___________________________
21°52' N
total lunar eclipse tonight. i think i may have missed out on the bulk of the total part, as i noticed a crescent when we should have seen either waxing gibbous or some version of full. but it was mostly totally overcast all night. my first comments upon waking were that it was to be 'another featureless night;' boy, was i ever wrong about that one. when i did notice the moon, i pointed at it and jenny agreed it was cool (she wrote that in the log); but it was nearly half an hour after she was off watch until i realized that the sky around it was clear and it was still obscured. meaning, eclipse. it was red-ish not red, but certainly it was dark enough to see deep space objects in cancer and in the surrounding constellations. i pulled out the binocs as the earth's shadow retreated. the astromoly program i have been using on the flaptop agreed that there was a lunar eclipse. fun.
this would mean that there would have also been an eclipse of saturn, which was also in leo at the time of the lunar eclipse. less spectacular without a telescope. also there's the part where we are on a boat and constantly moving from side to side, and from front to back. the humour of still having the level aboard, the irony of living without light pollution. zero boats, zero airplanes. i am tempted to say zero sattelites, but i figger that i am just not seeing the ones that are there. their orbits must be quite high, and GPS sattelites are geosynchronous, so it'd be way harder to spot them.
some photos of the eclipse. oh yeah. the boat is moving, so they're... creative. david ashcroft calls this a 'design feature.'
tonight was a watch entirely under sail. for a change! a great change. more satisfying sounds, and far more interesting even on autopilot.
we're flying an assymetrical spinnaker sail in addition to the gennaker sail. gennaker is like a giant jib (foresail) but sort of different. it's a hybrid of the genoa (a GIANT foresail, usually bigger than the main) and a spinnaker (only used for running, or if assymetrical for downwind tacks); the genny doesn't like to go upwind, and for that we have a second foresail, the 'solent.' i think genoa is named for the region from which it originated, as is the solent. they're both kind of boaty places. we also have a mainsail, but because we're a catamaran we use running backstays and it's not a great idea to sail on a run using the main. and way less effective anyway than what we're currently flying. more sail area = more velocity = more time in antigua before flying home... (flying home to winnipeg. now, that's a vacation).
so as far as somthing significant to do goes, the wind has been moving around a bit; we sailed 241° for a while and apparently had been as high as 272°. 30 degrees is a lot of variance for this part of the world and time of year. even on autopilot, sometimes you gotta change course to accommodate a wind shift.
i think this afternoon we were on exactly the same heading for my entire watch, though i did duck out to make some plumbings. i think i mentioned that i'd been getting to know the water system and playing with jubilee clips (hose clamps, but with a fancier name - UK style). why do i volunteer for them jobs? probably because i'll learn more. today i also made a 12 V extension cord, though i felt as though i was reinventing the wheel in order to clean up a tiny mess. being task-oriented, and having completed the first bit in a multistage process, i thought i'd make some fake cleanup along the way so that the real cleanup would not be so taxing when it was all said and done.
i made a little fine art project out of carving some hardwood bits to cover some sharp sticky-outy bits on the back of the bimini. bimini is a thing that keeps the weather out of the cockpit. sort of like a canopy, but likely named for the region in which it first appeared. this one is rigid, you can stand on it and that's where fully half of our solar panels live. high-tech. anyway, i made a bunch of sawdust and needed to clean the shop a little (one of my favourite activities is to clean up sawdust, ask the shilling people). vacuum no reachy. hence, an extension cord.
tomorrow: affix the fine art project into it's (their) new home(s). eat the cookies i baked while on watch. i hid them this time so that they'd be eaten after lunch instread of for breakfast. chocolate apricot (but say it like ape-ricot).
waxing gibbous
23°12' N
25°08' W
0615 UT
20.2.08
__________________________________________
overcast. a grey night with a waxing gibbous moon. i just like saying that. also typing it. pretty nearly full though, and that moon totally lit everything up from above. no real need to save the night vision tonight. cap'n m says that it takes half an hour to recover the night vision after en encounter with a bright light. seems reasonable, based on what i've seen.
short story about the reasons we wear our harnesses on watch at night: once upon a time there was a slightly disreputable south african delivery company. (what we are doing, the unglamourous version anyway, is that we're the delivery crew for this boat... a temporary addition to the permanent crew who are on for the duration.) they hadn't yet invented safety procedures and habitually left the cockpit at night without lifejackets/harnesses. one morning the watch relief woke to find dude had set out his have-a-shower rig on the back part of the boat, shampoo, towel soap et cetera. no dude. a reminder that 50% of overboards even in this day and age are lost and not coming back. so we're told that they're not lifejackets: they're harnesses, wear them and clip in. and on a 3 hour solo watch, that's potentially a long time before anyone even thinks that someone might be missing.
________________
that's enough of the doom and gloom. a digression to help balance off the overly wonder-years flavour of my last division.
tonight, more reading in lieu of television. also tonight i was continuing to wrestle with the maxsea software. it's still being a poo, and for the moment at least i am out of patience tickets. more tomorrow or perhaps the next day. it works fine on the ship computer, but the plan is to have redundant systems for all navigation and communication stuff. safer and all that. maxsea is already a redundant (not unnecessary but more like extra) system but hey, more is sometimes better. we actually do use a pencil and a paper chart. and one of them nifty rulers with the dial in the middle. i have one but mostly have only used it historically to make lines so i could write down banjo tablature for el banj.
from the atlantic crossing guide:
...should the yacht be struck by lightning, a back-up (GPS) set could be destroyed along with all the other electrical and electronic equipment on boat (including the astro-navigator's digital watch).
so it seems like have more than one plan is a great idea. celestial navigation requires know how, a sextant, an accurate chronometer and some tables on what should be where at what time. apparently these used to be published in an almanac thing, and were also probably in cruising guides until GPS became popular and systems like LORAN were phased out. i wonder if anyone actually has a windy-uppy watch on board.
still curious about that celestial nav stuff. different than merely steering by a star, which we did when the autopilot was broke. nice to have it back, though a 3 hour watch seemed to go a great deal faster when one had to continually focus. this way, we get less off course i bet though. and we're officially in race mode, as we lost 30 knots a day for about 3 days when we were awaiting the part in las palmas. and i hear that antigua is an even better place to have a day off than on gran canaria.
25°08' W
0615 UT
20.2.08
__________________________________________
overcast. a grey night with a waxing gibbous moon. i just like saying that. also typing it. pretty nearly full though, and that moon totally lit everything up from above. no real need to save the night vision tonight. cap'n m says that it takes half an hour to recover the night vision after en encounter with a bright light. seems reasonable, based on what i've seen.
short story about the reasons we wear our harnesses on watch at night: once upon a time there was a slightly disreputable south african delivery company. (what we are doing, the unglamourous version anyway, is that we're the delivery crew for this boat... a temporary addition to the permanent crew who are on for the duration.) they hadn't yet invented safety procedures and habitually left the cockpit at night without lifejackets/harnesses. one morning the watch relief woke to find dude had set out his have-a-shower rig on the back part of the boat, shampoo, towel soap et cetera. no dude. a reminder that 50% of overboards even in this day and age are lost and not coming back. so we're told that they're not lifejackets: they're harnesses, wear them and clip in. and on a 3 hour solo watch, that's potentially a long time before anyone even thinks that someone might be missing.
________________
that's enough of the doom and gloom. a digression to help balance off the overly wonder-years flavour of my last division.
tonight, more reading in lieu of television. also tonight i was continuing to wrestle with the maxsea software. it's still being a poo, and for the moment at least i am out of patience tickets. more tomorrow or perhaps the next day. it works fine on the ship computer, but the plan is to have redundant systems for all navigation and communication stuff. safer and all that. maxsea is already a redundant (not unnecessary but more like extra) system but hey, more is sometimes better. we actually do use a pencil and a paper chart. and one of them nifty rulers with the dial in the middle. i have one but mostly have only used it historically to make lines so i could write down banjo tablature for el banj.
from the atlantic crossing guide:
so it seems like have more than one plan is a great idea. celestial navigation requires know how, a sextant, an accurate chronometer and some tables on what should be where at what time. apparently these used to be published in an almanac thing, and were also probably in cruising guides until GPS became popular and systems like LORAN were phased out. i wonder if anyone actually has a windy-uppy watch on board.
still curious about that celestial nav stuff. different than merely steering by a star, which we did when the autopilot was broke. nice to have it back, though a 3 hour watch seemed to go a great deal faster when one had to continually focus. this way, we get less off course i bet though. and we're officially in race mode, as we lost 30 knots a day for about 3 days when we were awaiting the part in las palmas. and i hear that antigua is an even better place to have a day off than on gran canaria.
overcast.
24°14' N
22°44' W
0700 UT
19.2.08
_______________________________
apparently, so i have read, convention now dictates that GMT is actually UT; i was wondering what the spanish and french called greenwich mean time, and now that i think about it, even when i was a kid sitting by the shortwave radio in gimli the clock man used to say Universal Standard Time at the sound of the long tone. or perhaps i am making that one up. but that's what i think. i'll do some more thinking on that one.
mexican theme for supper tonight. nachos, zingy salsa and fajitas. yum. lots of food and it's a good thing that nobody is expecting to get a date out here, as the garlic quotient for this salsa is rather high. chef jenny has this gimmick that i have been using whereby the centre bit of the garlic is removed, defusing the nose-bomb part of it. that's what the mythology says, and so far i believe it. i have been making food with plenty of garlic since i have been here and since i started doing the middle removing bit, nobody's said tickety-boo (...they would say that, being brits and all) about how strong anything is.
one the one hand, it makes me think that the good part of the garlic is in there. maybe not. maybe that's how they get the non-stinky garlic pills and that. so for the salsa i manufactured with whole garlic and it's powerful. and it has been commented that it's spicy, though i hadn't thought of the garlic as a spice per se. it's also relly zingy as i used a whole wack of lime juice. mmm. during my watch i finished off all the dinner leftovers, and had a dipping sauce made from crème frâiche and the Tremendously Zingy Salsa. yum and yum.
finally got rid of the diesel scented room freshener. the luxury cabin in which i have been sleeping, and it is luxury (no sarcasm, this is where the owner of the yacht sleeps when aboard), but is located over the portside diesel fuel tank and over the onboard diesel generator fuel tank. flying cloud has solar panels that generate enough electricity to run everything [deep freeze, refrigerators, communication and navigational toys, as well as autopilot, lights, the water maker and all that jazz] especially when we're in the tropics, but probably not everything all at once all day.
so there's a generator to top things up. it's not great for batteries to go down to 45% charge or lower, and so what we're looking for is to maintain a nearly full charge most of the time. and cap'n m is rather organized about this, one might almost say organized in the hyphenated a/r kind of way. but that's why we like him best, because he's totally on top of these kinds of things. and water levels, and cooking gas levels, food quantities and so on. he sleeps through movies, talking, music playing and all sorts of nonsense, or claims to; he wakes up of the sound of the engine changes, when the wind shift alarm goes off, or when there's suddenly no apparent wind because someone accidentally tacked if they perhaps tried to sheet in the solent (as heading up and then unintentionally backwinding the headsail tends to force the boat through head-to-wind onto the opposite tack) but pulled the traveler instead of the solent sheet seeing as it was dark and all that and also catamarans are notoriously difficult to tack until they are moving at better than 4 knots and maybe trying to tack 3 or 4 times in order to figure that out and get back to a point of sail that actually gets the boat closer to gibraltar (hypothetically speaking, of course).
ahem, also an effective teacher, able to see what the person learning does understand, and what steps to take to get a more complete understanding of the concept across; willing in some instances to allow problems to be solved by experimentation when there's no great rush, and no real risk created by the problem solving process. somewhat socratic, though no toga and no hemlock. there is a certain madness in the method. seems to work so far.
i started watch tonight / this morning, somewhat disappointed that it was entirely overcast. no sky watching for me. so i watched the sea and that was fine. learned a bit more about the nav thingy, and finally found a solution for the glare. there's a night mode for the outdoor nav screen, which would have been useful last week. alas. now we've got a waxing moon, nearly full and setting after the end of my watch. the prime star viewing will be on the early watches after sunset if at all, and there'll be a moon in the sky until we're in the carribean.
it's still a great view, and not boring at all. i theorize that it wears off on some people, but those are the people that don't really like doing boat runs to kenora after the second or third week at camp. they always said that the romance wears off, but i haven't noticed.
thinking tonight about when i was an intermediate and we paddled with johnny the pee from buoy to buoy so that we could read the letters and numbers to confirm our position; apparently he wasn't much of a navigator before he was a 6 week tripper. we ate floating TL rafted up and moored with one foot on Birdshit Island. i know that's what it's really called because my counsellor johnny the pee told me so. it's north of whiskey island in the middle of manitou strait there sort of if you come out of holmstrom's marsh and are headed toward pebble beach on scotty's. we were headed to pebble from canyon i bet through holmstrom's marsh and it was in a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth; in the paleolithic age we actually had canvas tents, ate 'scuz eggs' and klik for breakfast, could camp at welcome channel (though we didn't when i was in manitou) and sang crazy stuff like 'O the Lord is good to me' and Y-M-C-A rah rah rah. what i was thinking is that it seemed like we were one the water for a real long time and that sterning that canoe when i was 11 across manitou strait was pretty cool because it was really far. and it was overcast.
22°44' W
0700 UT
19.2.08
_______________________________
apparently, so i have read, convention now dictates that GMT is actually UT; i was wondering what the spanish and french called greenwich mean time, and now that i think about it, even when i was a kid sitting by the shortwave radio in gimli the clock man used to say Universal Standard Time at the sound of the long tone. or perhaps i am making that one up. but that's what i think. i'll do some more thinking on that one.
mexican theme for supper tonight. nachos, zingy salsa and fajitas. yum. lots of food and it's a good thing that nobody is expecting to get a date out here, as the garlic quotient for this salsa is rather high. chef jenny has this gimmick that i have been using whereby the centre bit of the garlic is removed, defusing the nose-bomb part of it. that's what the mythology says, and so far i believe it. i have been making food with plenty of garlic since i have been here and since i started doing the middle removing bit, nobody's said tickety-boo (...they would say that, being brits and all) about how strong anything is.
one the one hand, it makes me think that the good part of the garlic is in there. maybe not. maybe that's how they get the non-stinky garlic pills and that. so for the salsa i manufactured with whole garlic and it's powerful. and it has been commented that it's spicy, though i hadn't thought of the garlic as a spice per se. it's also relly zingy as i used a whole wack of lime juice. mmm. during my watch i finished off all the dinner leftovers, and had a dipping sauce made from crème frâiche and the Tremendously Zingy Salsa. yum and yum.
finally got rid of the diesel scented room freshener. the luxury cabin in which i have been sleeping, and it is luxury (no sarcasm, this is where the owner of the yacht sleeps when aboard), but is located over the portside diesel fuel tank and over the onboard diesel generator fuel tank. flying cloud has solar panels that generate enough electricity to run everything [deep freeze, refrigerators, communication and navigational toys, as well as autopilot, lights, the water maker and all that jazz] especially when we're in the tropics, but probably not everything all at once all day.
so there's a generator to top things up. it's not great for batteries to go down to 45% charge or lower, and so what we're looking for is to maintain a nearly full charge most of the time. and cap'n m is rather organized about this, one might almost say organized in the hyphenated a/r kind of way. but that's why we like him best, because he's totally on top of these kinds of things. and water levels, and cooking gas levels, food quantities and so on. he sleeps through movies, talking, music playing and all sorts of nonsense, or claims to; he wakes up of the sound of the engine changes, when the wind shift alarm goes off, or when there's suddenly no apparent wind because someone accidentally tacked if they perhaps tried to sheet in the solent (as heading up and then unintentionally backwinding the headsail tends to force the boat through head-to-wind onto the opposite tack) but pulled the traveler instead of the solent sheet seeing as it was dark and all that and also catamarans are notoriously difficult to tack until they are moving at better than 4 knots and maybe trying to tack 3 or 4 times in order to figure that out and get back to a point of sail that actually gets the boat closer to gibraltar (hypothetically speaking, of course).
ahem, also an effective teacher, able to see what the person learning does understand, and what steps to take to get a more complete understanding of the concept across; willing in some instances to allow problems to be solved by experimentation when there's no great rush, and no real risk created by the problem solving process. somewhat socratic, though no toga and no hemlock. there is a certain madness in the method. seems to work so far.
MD looking slightly blurry.
i started watch tonight / this morning, somewhat disappointed that it was entirely overcast. no sky watching for me. so i watched the sea and that was fine. learned a bit more about the nav thingy, and finally found a solution for the glare. there's a night mode for the outdoor nav screen, which would have been useful last week. alas. now we've got a waxing moon, nearly full and setting after the end of my watch. the prime star viewing will be on the early watches after sunset if at all, and there'll be a moon in the sky until we're in the carribean.
it's still a great view, and not boring at all. i theorize that it wears off on some people, but those are the people that don't really like doing boat runs to kenora after the second or third week at camp. they always said that the romance wears off, but i haven't noticed.
thinking tonight about when i was an intermediate and we paddled with johnny the pee from buoy to buoy so that we could read the letters and numbers to confirm our position; apparently he wasn't much of a navigator before he was a 6 week tripper. we ate floating TL rafted up and moored with one foot on Birdshit Island. i know that's what it's really called because my counsellor johnny the pee told me so. it's north of whiskey island in the middle of manitou strait there sort of if you come out of holmstrom's marsh and are headed toward pebble beach on scotty's. we were headed to pebble from canyon i bet through holmstrom's marsh and it was in a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth; in the paleolithic age we actually had canvas tents, ate 'scuz eggs' and klik for breakfast, could camp at welcome channel (though we didn't when i was in manitou) and sang crazy stuff like 'O the Lord is good to me' and Y-M-C-A rah rah rah. what i was thinking is that it seemed like we were one the water for a real long time and that sterning that canoe when i was 11 across manitou strait was pretty cool because it was really far. and it was overcast.
rain rain rain. keeps comin. down down down. (rain rain rain rain rain?)
27°40' N
19°17' W
0625 GMT
17.2.08
_____________________
though the food handling people give me the impression that eating white rice that's been left on the counter will give you ebola, i am indulging in leftovers-day 2. nice to have some variety... for a long while after watch i have been chowing down on granola and yoghurt. mm, should i say muesli. when in rome and all that.
after our lovely dinner, cap'n m decided that it was his turn to do the dishes. he's sleeping and it's still his turn to do the dishes. he should sleep, though. the tricky part about the current watch system is that he's awake and active whenever he's awake and active. that's an on call for 24/7 that will last for the duration of the crossing. and when the seas are heavy as they were for most of today, that means a lot of consulting. we're a ways into it now, so there's less and less, and there is now an autopilot so that totally helps. but we had a real screamer blow in today. seems like my afternoon watch gets the electrical storms. gotta like that.
it was a bit like my favourite tom garrett memory. tom and i were camped on fleming with two cabins of senior boys.. i think he was in powell and i was in mckinney's or something that session and this wall of rain started coming toward the island. at first it was like 'guys, let's get our stuff into the tents 'cuz i think that rain's coming our way.' this changed rapidly to something more like: 'GET IN THE TENTS NOW! THIS IS HUGE AND IT'LL BE HERE... LIKE ACTUALLY NOW.' there were personal effects, lifejackets, paddles, a half finished pot of chili (well-nigh unheard of at my campsite) and schwånt
(junk for the non-CS) everywhere. we piled the kids into the tents, told them to not open their sleeping bags until they were ready to sleep, told the kids not to touch the sides of the tents (makes drips and then puddles) and started frantically putting everything away as the storm flew towards us. that was some wind.
tom's eyes were as big as saucers and he had the biggest smile i had ever seen on his face; he was obviously thrilled to pieces to be in the weather while the kids grumbled in the tents about how rain sucks, etc. tee hee. i think matt boats-is-a-music-band was on this trip. this afternoon i bet jenny it would arrive in like 3 minutes and i was off by about 90 seconds. killer. i think the gust was around 49 knots. and we were already in a 20 knot wind. so wooosh and vrooooomm, hey?
she and sarah had been a wee bit green all day, but when that rain and wind hit and we were out at the mast reefing in the mainsail, jenny was smiling a big tom garrett-style smile. there's some weather out here and it's exhilirating. it's also great to be sailing a rocket ship like this one. our neighbour in las palmas, tomas from germany, said that his boat has a hull speed of around 6 knots. sarah's velocity record stands on this trip at 18 knots. i have been at or around 12.5 knots; we do 6 knots standing on our heads clucking like a chicken. when we're actually sailing it gets way better than that.
oops of the day: i had been reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time' and was told what a great book it had been by several members of the crew. when i was done i gave it away to tomas, as we had been yapping about it the other day at 'sailor's bar,' and he had also mentioned that he'd finished all the books on his boat. wouldn't you know it, sarah had been interested in reading it but hadn't made that clear to me. oops. a nearly-oops was midway through supper when i was standing in the doorway talking about the compass with marilyn. a quiet, polite 'excuse me' on a heavy seas day (so i am informed) usually means 'get out of the way or i'll barf on you, buddy.' fortunately, i think everyone held onto their cookies.
this meant that there were larger portions for the less green-coloured. mmm. leftovers.
19°17' W
0625 GMT
17.2.08
_____________________
though the food handling people give me the impression that eating white rice that's been left on the counter will give you ebola, i am indulging in leftovers-day 2. nice to have some variety... for a long while after watch i have been chowing down on granola and yoghurt. mm, should i say muesli. when in rome and all that.
after our lovely dinner, cap'n m decided that it was his turn to do the dishes. he's sleeping and it's still his turn to do the dishes. he should sleep, though. the tricky part about the current watch system is that he's awake and active whenever he's awake and active. that's an on call for 24/7 that will last for the duration of the crossing. and when the seas are heavy as they were for most of today, that means a lot of consulting. we're a ways into it now, so there's less and less, and there is now an autopilot so that totally helps. but we had a real screamer blow in today. seems like my afternoon watch gets the electrical storms. gotta like that.
it was a bit like my favourite tom garrett memory. tom and i were camped on fleming with two cabins of senior boys.. i think he was in powell and i was in mckinney's or something that session and this wall of rain started coming toward the island. at first it was like 'guys, let's get our stuff into the tents 'cuz i think that rain's coming our way.' this changed rapidly to something more like: 'GET IN THE TENTS NOW! THIS IS HUGE AND IT'LL BE HERE... LIKE ACTUALLY NOW.' there were personal effects, lifejackets, paddles, a half finished pot of chili (well-nigh unheard of at my campsite) and schwånt
(junk for the non-CS) everywhere. we piled the kids into the tents, told them to not open their sleeping bags until they were ready to sleep, told the kids not to touch the sides of the tents (makes drips and then puddles) and started frantically putting everything away as the storm flew towards us. that was some wind.
tom's eyes were as big as saucers and he had the biggest smile i had ever seen on his face; he was obviously thrilled to pieces to be in the weather while the kids grumbled in the tents about how rain sucks, etc. tee hee. i think matt boats-is-a-music-band was on this trip. this afternoon i bet jenny it would arrive in like 3 minutes and i was off by about 90 seconds. killer. i think the gust was around 49 knots. and we were already in a 20 knot wind. so wooosh and vrooooomm, hey?
she and sarah had been a wee bit green all day, but when that rain and wind hit and we were out at the mast reefing in the mainsail, jenny was smiling a big tom garrett-style smile. there's some weather out here and it's exhilirating. it's also great to be sailing a rocket ship like this one. our neighbour in las palmas, tomas from germany, said that his boat has a hull speed of around 6 knots. sarah's velocity record stands on this trip at 18 knots. i have been at or around 12.5 knots; we do 6 knots standing on our heads clucking like a chicken. when we're actually sailing it gets way better than that.
oops of the day: i had been reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time' and was told what a great book it had been by several members of the crew. when i was done i gave it away to tomas, as we had been yapping about it the other day at 'sailor's bar,' and he had also mentioned that he'd finished all the books on his boat. wouldn't you know it, sarah had been interested in reading it but hadn't made that clear to me. oops. a nearly-oops was midway through supper when i was standing in the doorway talking about the compass with marilyn. a quiet, polite 'excuse me' on a heavy seas day (so i am informed) usually means 'get out of the way or i'll barf on you, buddy.' fortunately, i think everyone held onto their cookies.
this meant that there were larger portions for the less green-coloured. mmm. leftovers.
sort of. flamenkish.
27°51' N
16°49' W
16.02.08
_____________________________
leaving las palmas.
enjoying some leftover lasagne. it's comparitively rare there is anything left after a meal at all, so there's no such thing as leftover day on the flying cloud. we're just hungry, i guess. jenny claims that i am skinner than she is, yet i eat more than matt. 'where does it go?' she says. one thing i have learned from working at camp s is that the 'will work for food' contract actually is a good deal for someone with my metabolism.
i am reminded of ian waters' suggestion that before a dinner date or family dinner with the significant O, he tends to eat dinner first; then at the event, a normal person sized portion is easily put away, and noone has to double any recipes. restaurant bills are more reasonable and one doesn't have to walk away feeling like eating dinner after getting home from eating dinner.
tonight's constellation is Virgo, based on which part of the sky is clear and other nebulous factors. there was still a lot of light pollution from the various canary islands and the moon is super bright. tonight the moon set about an hour into my watch. not bad stars on the ocean side after that, and a couple shooting stars, one of which had a green tail that lasted at least until i remembered to start saying the alphabet. which took longer than it should.
for the second leg of our journey, my watch will no longer end with jupiter rising, venus rising and then rose rising. miss rose has gone off to work and from now on it'll be marilyn rising (for the spillane watch? i suppose). and at the moment we've crossed another time zone so dawn is roughly an hour later than it was. watches are all GMT, and that will not change en route.
funny thing about leaving port. it's the leaving part that sticks out and not so much the port part. after many days in las palmas i found a bakery, a music store, a place to get AA batteries. stuff like that.
the music store was disappointing. i went in and had to tune a cheapish classical guitar with a cutaway and didn't like it all that much. 170 euros. not all that cheap. but not all that nice for nearly $400. very light strings. ew. also played an F-style mandolin that was super flat, and even not in tune with itself before i touched it. also: light strings = no like. there's just no tone in floppy strings.
the only halfway pretty instrument in the shop was a used flamenco guitar way in the back of the store. i waited around for about 15 minutes to have this dude tell me i wasn't to play it. mostly tuning out of tune instruments and playing a bit of bossa nova. the counter dude explained that it wasn't for sale and that it was his father's. which explained not a lot, though perhaps his father is andrès segovia. though i had considered picking up a tuning fork, i decided not to buy anything and left. my hands were clean. and come on, it's just a guitar. it had friction pegs and the flamenco-style fingernail guards on the top. a beautiful instrument. alas.
16°49' W
16.02.08
_____________________________
leaving las palmas.
enjoying some leftover lasagne. it's comparitively rare there is anything left after a meal at all, so there's no such thing as leftover day on the flying cloud. we're just hungry, i guess. jenny claims that i am skinner than she is, yet i eat more than matt. 'where does it go?' she says. one thing i have learned from working at camp s is that the 'will work for food' contract actually is a good deal for someone with my metabolism.
i am reminded of ian waters' suggestion that before a dinner date or family dinner with the significant O, he tends to eat dinner first; then at the event, a normal person sized portion is easily put away, and noone has to double any recipes. restaurant bills are more reasonable and one doesn't have to walk away feeling like eating dinner after getting home from eating dinner.
tonight's constellation is Virgo, based on which part of the sky is clear and other nebulous factors. there was still a lot of light pollution from the various canary islands and the moon is super bright. tonight the moon set about an hour into my watch. not bad stars on the ocean side after that, and a couple shooting stars, one of which had a green tail that lasted at least until i remembered to start saying the alphabet. which took longer than it should.
for the second leg of our journey, my watch will no longer end with jupiter rising, venus rising and then rose rising. miss rose has gone off to work and from now on it'll be marilyn rising (for the spillane watch? i suppose). and at the moment we've crossed another time zone so dawn is roughly an hour later than it was. watches are all GMT, and that will not change en route.
funny thing about leaving port. it's the leaving part that sticks out and not so much the port part. after many days in las palmas i found a bakery, a music store, a place to get AA batteries. stuff like that.
the music store was disappointing. i went in and had to tune a cheapish classical guitar with a cutaway and didn't like it all that much. 170 euros. not all that cheap. but not all that nice for nearly $400. very light strings. ew. also played an F-style mandolin that was super flat, and even not in tune with itself before i touched it. also: light strings = no like. there's just no tone in floppy strings.
the only halfway pretty instrument in the shop was a used flamenco guitar way in the back of the store. i waited around for about 15 minutes to have this dude tell me i wasn't to play it. mostly tuning out of tune instruments and playing a bit of bossa nova. the counter dude explained that it wasn't for sale and that it was his father's. which explained not a lot, though perhaps his father is andrès segovia. though i had considered picking up a tuning fork, i decided not to buy anything and left. my hands were clean. and come on, it's just a guitar. it had friction pegs and the flamenco-style fingernail guards on the top. a beautiful instrument. alas.
delay delay. another delay.
so we're still in las palmas. the part for the autopilot is apparently on the island but is not here. so we wait. today actually felt like make-work. a long wander in town. a trip to the grocery, where i bought a pestle and mortar. somehow i think i have actually always wanted one. i think there was one at balmoral house when i lived there, but perhaps not.
the net i made for stowing provisions for the first leg of the trip had a tonne of space and i am pleased that there's enough room for the crossing fruit and veg. seems like not a
lot in the pic, but the net is probably about 8' wide and a foot deep. making a pizza experiment. we'll see. fingers crossed. probably not to compare with armand's, but hey. he's not here.
met some italians the other day and had a few laughs on their boat. nice guys. seems like ship captains actually all speak several languages. i get the feeling it just comes with the territory, like the gregarious nature that goes along with the job description. the italians are from napoli and put their red wine in the fridge before serving it. not exactly chilled, but fresh.
listening to some isaac hayes and enjoying a 'tropical,' a canarian beer. this is on matt's ipod and is a gift from his bro chris. it's called 'matt's secret weapon.' not sure what that means exactly, but why be worried about that.
______
update: the raymarine dudes are on the boat and it's actually possible that we'll be off this afternoon. that would rock.
more soon,
.
the net i made for stowing provisions for the first leg of the trip had a tonne of space and i am pleased that there's enough room for the crossing fruit and veg. seems like not a
lot in the pic, but the net is probably about 8' wide and a foot deep. making a pizza experiment. we'll see. fingers crossed. probably not to compare with armand's, but hey. he's not here. met some italians the other day and had a few laughs on their boat. nice guys. seems like ship captains actually all speak several languages. i get the feeling it just comes with the territory, like the gregarious nature that goes along with the job description. the italians are from napoli and put their red wine in the fridge before serving it. not exactly chilled, but fresh.
listening to some isaac hayes and enjoying a 'tropical,' a canarian beer. this is on matt's ipod and is a gift from his bro chris. it's called 'matt's secret weapon.' not sure what that means exactly, but why be worried about that.
______
update: the raymarine dudes are on the boat and it's actually possible that we'll be off this afternoon. that would rock.
more soon,
.
in port.
at 'sailor bar' in the canaries.
first leg was a success. accumulated many tiredness points, and was first to crawl in to my sleeping bag after the expected joviality and libation necessarily connected to an arrival in port. and then awake and wired to GO not 3 hours later. i eventually pretended to sleep until... an actual jackhammer. naturally the port construction boys were finished using it after i had comsumed the first coffee of the day.
captain matt debicki
one could get used to this sailing stuff. completely taxing and a full use of my resources, mental and physical and perhaps spiritual. it's rather enriching, if i must say. i should start being excited soon, but mostly this is a lot of work. yesterday i spent a good 2 albums worth orf cleaning ferdinand diesel. killed my old toothbrush and now it sparkles. it's still and engine room, so it'll require many layers of clean in order to eat offa it. more cleaner. a very effective fake cleanup.
rose leaves today and we've acquired her ma Marilyn, who seems rather excellent and loves singing. i suspect there'll be many show tunes coming out of her and our fist mate over the next number of days.
miss rose. when she arrived, i put a can of peas in her bed and had a good chuckle.
more soon.
first leg was a success. accumulated many tiredness points, and was first to crawl in to my sleeping bag after the expected joviality and libation necessarily connected to an arrival in port. and then awake and wired to GO not 3 hours later. i eventually pretended to sleep until... an actual jackhammer. naturally the port construction boys were finished using it after i had comsumed the first coffee of the day.
captain matt debickione could get used to this sailing stuff. completely taxing and a full use of my resources, mental and physical and perhaps spiritual. it's rather enriching, if i must say. i should start being excited soon, but mostly this is a lot of work. yesterday i spent a good 2 albums worth orf cleaning ferdinand diesel. killed my old toothbrush and now it sparkles. it's still and engine room, so it'll require many layers of clean in order to eat offa it. more cleaner. a very effective fake cleanup.
rose leaves today and we've acquired her ma Marilyn, who seems rather excellent and loves singing. i suspect there'll be many show tunes coming out of her and our fist mate over the next number of days.
miss rose. when she arrived, i put a can of peas in her bed and had a good chuckle.more soon.
learning curve
31°N
13°10'W
0622
___________________
learning curve. winds ESE at force 6, or 26 knots. shifted during watch, and was challenging to begin with. kicked the crap out of me a bit.
been that kind of a day. some good stuff, but today has me thinking about the reverse midas touch. where everything turns to brown if touched.
took a few photos of these birds that infested the boat for a while. first mate says that they sometimes stray too far from shore and get tired. captain says if they're polite, they go away from the boat to die. aw.
some kind of swallow i think. we eventually closed the saloon hatch and the sliding patio door, as a bird (or perhaps different birds at different times.. there were four of them all together) kept flying in and roosting on the back shelf like it wanted to stay for dessert.
13°10'W
0622
___________________
learning curve. winds ESE at force 6, or 26 knots. shifted during watch, and was challenging to begin with. kicked the crap out of me a bit.
been that kind of a day. some good stuff, but today has me thinking about the reverse midas touch. where everything turns to brown if touched.
took a few photos of these birds that infested the boat for a while. first mate says that they sometimes stray too far from shore and get tired. captain says if they're polite, they go away from the boat to die. aw.
some kind of swallow i think. we eventually closed the saloon hatch and the sliding patio door, as a bird (or perhaps different birds at different times.. there were four of them all together) kept flying in and roosting on the back shelf like it wanted to stay for dessert.
extra sunglasses
33°14' N
10°42' W
0700 GMT
another beautiful night.
watched a somewhat lame film tonight though. strange to wake up to a sunrise over africa and then sit through 'i am legend.' i was trying to decide if mr. smith ran on the treadmill beside his dog in 'i robot' or if he just did pull ups in the doorway in both films. i bet the 'legend' film was better as a book.
the prolonged study of the sky is yielding results. though i am not certain i have seen or am able to see pluto. elusive pluto. not even a planet anymore. but near the boötes there's this little star cluster, which i could see, barely. and then there's this speck. which is approximately in the spot where pluto is supposed to be located. not confirmed. but maybe. it's a tricky one. i don't want to jump the gun on this one.
saw the beehive nebula tonight. that was a treat, it's in cancer and is rather faint... between gemini and leo. ha! a week ago i couldn't tell you where either of those are. funny how having consecutive days on watch at the same time really orient things. the sea is just the sea, and at night it's way more about the sky than the sea. strange as a lake boat driver to deal with just accepting that there is totally nothing in the way. no deadheads. no random floaty things. no other boats. well, some other boats... but that's what radar is for, the VRM/EBL thing and AIS.
AIS is very cool. there's this computery thing here.. not sure if it's part of the onboard PC, but at any rate we broadcast out a signal that says 'hi. we're us and we're going this direction and this fast. oh yeah, and we're a SAILBOAT.' at least i think it says that. AIS tells me that, for example, 'MS ORCHESTRA' is the ginormous cruise ship producing roughly the light pollution that kenora does. it's astounding, but i suppose that it's possible 10,000 people live there too.
it's stupidly huge anyway. AIS also tells us that MS ORCHESTRA is really big, but it's also currently doing 30 knots and is going somewhere over there, will pass closest to us in about 23 minutes and will be 2.5 nautical miles (that's what knots are.. 1.14 road miles in a knot) away from us when it does.
so we just turn on ferdinand diesel and motor our way into the blackness secure in the lack of any obstacles at all. (or sail. though it's been calm or dead calm for the last number of nights.) wild. the dolphins that swim with the boat through the glow in the dark thingies are also pretty cool. today we stopped the boat, for the first time since we left the dock in la grande motte. everyone swam under the trampoline. matt dove in with and lost his sunglasses. oops. no diving for those on the bottom. right now the raymarine tells us that it's too deep to measure, our chart says that we're in about 4000 m of water. deep! no more sunglasses.
i had a rather nice pair that i lost on chien d'or while on a reconaissance mission with karen storie (3 wk tripper 2002). i can't remember what we had to go there for. but we took a ZF and somehow i neglected to remove the very comfortable shades. sucks when that happens. they were so comfortable i forgot i was wearing them. and somehow i am very glad on my 'to pack' list was 'extra sunglasses' as i cannot find my new lovely MEC ones. and since my afternoon watch has been basically pointing the boat at 220°... the setting sun, it's been pretty key to have shades and a peaked hat to hide behind. essentially have to drve the boat exactly at the sun for three hours. did i menton that the autopilot, she is toasted (as we say in french)? this is good practice i think. yeah, that's it.
10°42' W
0700 GMT
another beautiful night.
random photo, i think of cartagena, spain
watched a somewhat lame film tonight though. strange to wake up to a sunrise over africa and then sit through 'i am legend.' i was trying to decide if mr. smith ran on the treadmill beside his dog in 'i robot' or if he just did pull ups in the doorway in both films. i bet the 'legend' film was better as a book.
the prolonged study of the sky is yielding results. though i am not certain i have seen or am able to see pluto. elusive pluto. not even a planet anymore. but near the boötes there's this little star cluster, which i could see, barely. and then there's this speck. which is approximately in the spot where pluto is supposed to be located. not confirmed. but maybe. it's a tricky one. i don't want to jump the gun on this one.
saw the beehive nebula tonight. that was a treat, it's in cancer and is rather faint... between gemini and leo. ha! a week ago i couldn't tell you where either of those are. funny how having consecutive days on watch at the same time really orient things. the sea is just the sea, and at night it's way more about the sky than the sea. strange as a lake boat driver to deal with just accepting that there is totally nothing in the way. no deadheads. no random floaty things. no other boats. well, some other boats... but that's what radar is for, the VRM/EBL thing and AIS.
AIS is very cool. there's this computery thing here.. not sure if it's part of the onboard PC, but at any rate we broadcast out a signal that says 'hi. we're us and we're going this direction and this fast. oh yeah, and we're a SAILBOAT.' at least i think it says that. AIS tells me that, for example, 'MS ORCHESTRA' is the ginormous cruise ship producing roughly the light pollution that kenora does. it's astounding, but i suppose that it's possible 10,000 people live there too.
it's stupidly huge anyway. AIS also tells us that MS ORCHESTRA is really big, but it's also currently doing 30 knots and is going somewhere over there, will pass closest to us in about 23 minutes and will be 2.5 nautical miles (that's what knots are.. 1.14 road miles in a knot) away from us when it does.
so we just turn on ferdinand diesel and motor our way into the blackness secure in the lack of any obstacles at all. (or sail. though it's been calm or dead calm for the last number of nights.) wild. the dolphins that swim with the boat through the glow in the dark thingies are also pretty cool. today we stopped the boat, for the first time since we left the dock in la grande motte. everyone swam under the trampoline. matt dove in with and lost his sunglasses. oops. no diving for those on the bottom. right now the raymarine tells us that it's too deep to measure, our chart says that we're in about 4000 m of water. deep! no more sunglasses.
i had a rather nice pair that i lost on chien d'or while on a reconaissance mission with karen storie (3 wk tripper 2002). i can't remember what we had to go there for. but we took a ZF and somehow i neglected to remove the very comfortable shades. sucks when that happens. they were so comfortable i forgot i was wearing them. and somehow i am very glad on my 'to pack' list was 'extra sunglasses' as i cannot find my new lovely MEC ones. and since my afternoon watch has been basically pointing the boat at 220°... the setting sun, it's been pretty key to have shades and a peaked hat to hide behind. essentially have to drve the boat exactly at the sun for three hours. did i menton that the autopilot, she is toasted (as we say in french)? this is good practice i think. yeah, that's it.
sunrise over africa
34°59' N
8°34' W
0745
___________________________
boötes. cygnus (the northern cross). no pluto just yet. maybe you need a telescope for that.
just saw the sun rise over africa. we're about the same latitude as casablanca and AFTER my watch, the wind came up. this is not a coincidence, as my watch ends with the rising of jupiter, venus and then the sun. yep. the sun's actually up now. more like daytime. someone asked me what day of the week it is. i have no idea. i always know nearly exactly what time of day it is, but what day of the week? i'm not certain that there are days of the week at sea. sort of like on trail.
i am starting to get really into the phosphorescent thingies. tonight there were rather a few nighttime visitors. i'm not dangling my hand over the side or anything, as there's no way to tell exactly what species of visitor it is in any case. the dolphins come in threes or fours so far and swim near the bow of one of the hulls, then veer off away; you can catch them out of the corner of the eye as they swim fast toward the boat and then turn sharply forward. the solitary ones may or may not be dolphins. i am getting used to the phosporescent bits.. they are microorganisms that glow in the water when disturbed by either the boat or some swimmy thing. i'm starting to see the size and number of our swimmy guests.
tonight was a whole new thing: one plane. one ship. heaps of guests, good meteor action.
just before watch, i realized that my polypros are all black, donned them with my polypro gloves (also black), my polypro skidoo mask (yep. also black), and a pair of black socks. then stealthed onto the bridge all over dramatic pretend-sneaky like and aksed jenny if she'd like a cup of tea, ninja style. and a gummi bear. if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be dumb.
8°34' W
0745
___________________________
boötes. cygnus (the northern cross). no pluto just yet. maybe you need a telescope for that.
just saw the sun rise over africa. we're about the same latitude as casablanca and AFTER my watch, the wind came up. this is not a coincidence, as my watch ends with the rising of jupiter, venus and then the sun. yep. the sun's actually up now. more like daytime. someone asked me what day of the week it is. i have no idea. i always know nearly exactly what time of day it is, but what day of the week? i'm not certain that there are days of the week at sea. sort of like on trail.
i am starting to get really into the phosphorescent thingies. tonight there were rather a few nighttime visitors. i'm not dangling my hand over the side or anything, as there's no way to tell exactly what species of visitor it is in any case. the dolphins come in threes or fours so far and swim near the bow of one of the hulls, then veer off away; you can catch them out of the corner of the eye as they swim fast toward the boat and then turn sharply forward. the solitary ones may or may not be dolphins. i am getting used to the phosporescent bits.. they are microorganisms that glow in the water when disturbed by either the boat or some swimmy thing. i'm starting to see the size and number of our swimmy guests.
tonight was a whole new thing: one plane. one ship. heaps of guests, good meteor action.
just before watch, i realized that my polypros are all black, donned them with my polypro gloves (also black), my polypro skidoo mask (yep. also black), and a pair of black socks. then stealthed onto the bridge all over dramatic pretend-sneaky like and aksed jenny if she'd like a cup of tea, ninja style. and a gummi bear. if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be dumb.
dah dah. dahdahdahdahdah
at sea.
i swear i had more written on this day. where did it go? alas.
________________________________
tonight i brought jenny a gummi bear right near the end of her watch and we watched the dolphins swimming in the phosphorescents that were swimming with the boat. we saw dolphins in the afternoon as well, but i also spotted a slightly bigger and darker coloured thing, with a squared off fin near the tail. mister shark? just a fleeting glimpse. (insert theme from JAWS). killer stars on my watch. as usual, i am tempted to say.
new moon. meteors.
tired. pleased.
i swear i had more written on this day. where did it go? alas.
________________________________
tonight i brought jenny a gummi bear right near the end of her watch and we watched the dolphins swimming in the phosphorescents that were swimming with the boat. we saw dolphins in the afternoon as well, but i also spotted a slightly bigger and darker coloured thing, with a squared off fin near the tail. mister shark? just a fleeting glimpse. (insert theme from JAWS). killer stars on my watch. as usual, i am tempted to say.
new moon. meteors.
tired. pleased.
no autopilot for you. one week.
at sea.
38°01' N
0°0'07" E
1100h
______________________
another perfect day? sleeping in shifts. half at one point in the day and half i think at another. sort of based around my nocturnal watch time, and taking advantage of the daylight. i get the sunrise as well as the sunset and sleep and work in the in between times. i think this morning i elected to go to sleep in celebration of the sunrise in lieu of snacking and hanging out on deck, which i have done for a number of days.
crossed the GMT line, now we're east of greenwich.
sarah bladon, at the helm
the autopilot is on the fritz. i had wondered out loud just yesterday about how if must've been more challenging to sail when there was no such thing as autopilot, GPS and so on. on the one hand. what this means is that for two of my last three watches i have been chained to the steering, which is actually all relaxing and focus oriented. steering a course is quite challenging and whenever i talk to anyone i still go off course. careful what you wish for. so, it's tiny adjustments and lots of waiting; otherwise it's 'India, China. India, China.' inefficient and frustrating. occasionally i get into the zone and everything is peachy.
for a while last night i was all concerned about this giant boat which, according to AIS (one of the exciting aids to navigation), was to be directly across our bow. or us across theirs.
AIS is something like radar, but VRM/EBL is more like the radar in the WWII movies. as i was introduced to both of these yesterday, while on watch when the autopilot was still working, it took me a while to establish even the most basic information about the giant boat. some of these ships are HUGE. eventually, after a series of less than peachy meanderings and using the VRM/EBL, i established that giant boat was going toward shore, was more than 6 and less than 12 nautical miles away, took a deep breath and a sip of diet coke and relaxed. i knew it was big and far, but once i knew how far i was pleased to turn down the stress meter.
AIS gives us the name of the vessel, its heading, speed and so on. you can program it to track the thing ("target acquired") and even lets you know if you'll pass close to it given the current heading and speed of each vessel. pretty cool, really. i went a little further west than had been planned, but as i had been given a COG (Course Over Ground) that was basically straight into the wind, it was the best of all possible alternatives regardless. or that's what i am told. kinda strange to be listening to a motor on a sailing trip, but the wind was under 10 knots and there is a somewhat loose schedule to keep. a schedule nonetheless.
ferdinand diesel is actually quite soothing and lulled me into nearly sleeping into my watch, i think every other night (morning?) we'd been under sail and my little alarm, which merely turns on and makes the tiniest amout of white noise... i think there's a beepy version and also perhaps a radio in there. works great, unless there's that low rumble.
i am reminded of the epoch when i first lived in the Mayfair block. Big Poppa had two VHS machines hooked up to a kickass stereo and a rather complete library of Star Trek The Next Generation. i had been a rabid attender of Trekfast [Louis' Pub in S'toon each and every saturday that we happened to be in town] but made no effort to be there for the new series, claiming to be a fan of the original run and no prisoner of the next generation hype. i started watching TNG in sequence and was moderately pleased until one day i figured out that the VHS could be run through the stereo. there's this low end rumble in there that really turned my head. you can't hear it if you watch this thing on a 'regular' TV, as the 2 inch speaker simply does not make low end. and i was suddenly really, truly impressed with the sound. and hence the series. fully hooked. i think i watched 2 or maybe 3 episodes a day for more than a month.
i like ferdinand's rumble. there's also the generator, that one is lovely, though perhaps not as soothing.
38°01' N
0°0'07" E
1100h
______________________
another perfect day? sleeping in shifts. half at one point in the day and half i think at another. sort of based around my nocturnal watch time, and taking advantage of the daylight. i get the sunrise as well as the sunset and sleep and work in the in between times. i think this morning i elected to go to sleep in celebration of the sunrise in lieu of snacking and hanging out on deck, which i have done for a number of days.
crossed the GMT line, now we're east of greenwich.
sarah bladon, at the helm
the autopilot is on the fritz. i had wondered out loud just yesterday about how if must've been more challenging to sail when there was no such thing as autopilot, GPS and so on. on the one hand. what this means is that for two of my last three watches i have been chained to the steering, which is actually all relaxing and focus oriented. steering a course is quite challenging and whenever i talk to anyone i still go off course. careful what you wish for. so, it's tiny adjustments and lots of waiting; otherwise it's 'India, China. India, China.' inefficient and frustrating. occasionally i get into the zone and everything is peachy.
for a while last night i was all concerned about this giant boat which, according to AIS (one of the exciting aids to navigation), was to be directly across our bow. or us across theirs.
AIS is something like radar, but VRM/EBL is more like the radar in the WWII movies. as i was introduced to both of these yesterday, while on watch when the autopilot was still working, it took me a while to establish even the most basic information about the giant boat. some of these ships are HUGE. eventually, after a series of less than peachy meanderings and using the VRM/EBL, i established that giant boat was going toward shore, was more than 6 and less than 12 nautical miles away, took a deep breath and a sip of diet coke and relaxed. i knew it was big and far, but once i knew how far i was pleased to turn down the stress meter.
AIS gives us the name of the vessel, its heading, speed and so on. you can program it to track the thing ("target acquired") and even lets you know if you'll pass close to it given the current heading and speed of each vessel. pretty cool, really. i went a little further west than had been planned, but as i had been given a COG (Course Over Ground) that was basically straight into the wind, it was the best of all possible alternatives regardless. or that's what i am told. kinda strange to be listening to a motor on a sailing trip, but the wind was under 10 knots and there is a somewhat loose schedule to keep. a schedule nonetheless.
ferdinand diesel is actually quite soothing and lulled me into nearly sleeping into my watch, i think every other night (morning?) we'd been under sail and my little alarm, which merely turns on and makes the tiniest amout of white noise... i think there's a beepy version and also perhaps a radio in there. works great, unless there's that low rumble.
i am reminded of the epoch when i first lived in the Mayfair block. Big Poppa had two VHS machines hooked up to a kickass stereo and a rather complete library of Star Trek The Next Generation. i had been a rabid attender of Trekfast [Louis' Pub in S'toon each and every saturday that we happened to be in town] but made no effort to be there for the new series, claiming to be a fan of the original run and no prisoner of the next generation hype. i started watching TNG in sequence and was moderately pleased until one day i figured out that the VHS could be run through the stereo. there's this low end rumble in there that really turned my head. you can't hear it if you watch this thing on a 'regular' TV, as the 2 inch speaker simply does not make low end. and i was suddenly really, truly impressed with the sound. and hence the series. fully hooked. i think i watched 2 or maybe 3 episodes a day for more than a month.
i like ferdinand's rumble. there's also the generator, that one is lovely, though perhaps not as soothing.
an electrical storm
at sea.
38°58' N
1°15'E
just heard back from the coast guard relay. there was a mayday call on the VHF, the windsurfer in distress is now okay. all it initially said was 'requiring immediate assistance,' and it was mostly in spanish and i think some french. they all talk so fast.
yesterday afternoon's watch was nuts. i got the 'reefing the main' primer and that was all informative, gives me some ideas about the lightning main. not that we'll necessarily be using the lightning all that much after or perhaps even during this coming season. i may inquire as to the viability of keeping it somewhere for folks to use. hard to deal with a 1000 pound boat that is 20' long, etc. when you don't live in a place with a yard.
first lightning storm at sea. we had hail. some crazy wind shifts. i think it was sail change after sail change. good practice. jenny and i traded hats. she's now got the korean war hemet liner, which was a 'police action' and in any case it's somewhat unlikely that velcro had been invented by that point in history. funny how it had never really occurred to me that the velcro makes that particular headgear a bit more modern than i had initially supposed. my new châpeau is a red northface thingy almost identical (save for the colour.. and it's gore-tex, so perhaps better material) to the hat rachael got for solstice this year. or was it chaunnakah, xmas merry merry quite contrary. i actually think it was after xmas eve that i gave that so maybe it was random gifting.
DIF
first day at sea.
40°55' N
2°39'E
we're just past valencia and in la mar balearico, between corsica and spain. the stars are incredible and i was very pleased to see the moon rise during my watch ths morning. i have volunteered .. perhaps wisely, perhaps not, for the 3AM - 6 AM watch.
perhaps i am a masochist, making this business as stressful as possible. thinking that i decided it would be a great idea to try the fish soup and the duck pâté before the first afternoon watch at sea. moderate seas are nothing like moderate lake of the woods, to say the least. the catamaran is pretty forgiving and all from side to side, which is to say there is not a great deal of heeling, but it does give ya quite the spanking front to backways. up and down and up and down all the time. we got fairly spanked during that first lunch. an eye opener. the biggest october day on the lake is 'moderate' by mediterranean standards.
sleeping has been going well, and thus far i have been holding onto my lunch. a good experiment. we have access to the best binocs i have yet encountered and they have this really funky feature.. image stablizer. wild. it seems to blur things out a bit, but then i am a tad obsessive about focus, i am doing my best to get my response time up when observing.
fujinon techno stabi 14 x 40 4°.
found a new deep space object in the thingy dangling from the belt of orion. not on my watch, of course; i was busy looking at ships and monitoring instruments at that point. random statistic, 5 minutes after a ship is not visible on the horizon, if y'all are on a collision course, ya might be collidin', provided that those five minutes are all when said ship is in your blind spot. on watch it's important to be relocating every now and again (every two or three minutes) so as to eliminate them blind spots. the deep space thingy was on the watch of miss rose. i went out after dinner was done and donned the binocs, clipped myself in and splayed out on the foredeck by the trampoline for some comfy relaxy observing. we took a look out for corsica and for a few tankers as well. they're totally huge. each a behemoth. and there's shipping galore in the med.
more on DSOs. in the litle star cluster hanging from orion, there's most definitely a cloud of luminscent gas in the middle.. some kind of nebula. very cool. and not terribly visible in manitoba in winter.. i'd likely be able to see it from the cabin by the whiteshell with the telescope there, but it's way less favourable for viewing due to our provinvce's temperature. it's a dry cold. you can dress for it. but that's a more ambitious thing. you can also dress for watch, but it's easy to underestimate how cold it is. or how warm it's not. humidity makes a big diff. so far, i am dressing for driving a boat in november in ontario and it's working just fine. the coldest i have been thus far was after one of my many recreational swims in la grande motte to retrieve one of many key items that failed the DIF* test.
the sea temp claimed to be just under 10°C, but that might have been a surface temp. air in the morning was around 0°C and my swim that day was well before things warmed to the balmy 12°C or so we got in the sunny afternoons. i got good and burnt on our first afternoon and now am once again nerdy about screening, even on cloudy days.
*Does It Float?
40°55' N
2°39'E
we're just past valencia and in la mar balearico, between corsica and spain. the stars are incredible and i was very pleased to see the moon rise during my watch ths morning. i have volunteered .. perhaps wisely, perhaps not, for the 3AM - 6 AM watch.
perhaps i am a masochist, making this business as stressful as possible. thinking that i decided it would be a great idea to try the fish soup and the duck pâté before the first afternoon watch at sea. moderate seas are nothing like moderate lake of the woods, to say the least. the catamaran is pretty forgiving and all from side to side, which is to say there is not a great deal of heeling, but it does give ya quite the spanking front to backways. up and down and up and down all the time. we got fairly spanked during that first lunch. an eye opener. the biggest october day on the lake is 'moderate' by mediterranean standards.
sleeping has been going well, and thus far i have been holding onto my lunch. a good experiment. we have access to the best binocs i have yet encountered and they have this really funky feature.. image stablizer. wild. it seems to blur things out a bit, but then i am a tad obsessive about focus, i am doing my best to get my response time up when observing.
fujinon techno stabi 14 x 40 4°.
found a new deep space object in the thingy dangling from the belt of orion. not on my watch, of course; i was busy looking at ships and monitoring instruments at that point. random statistic, 5 minutes after a ship is not visible on the horizon, if y'all are on a collision course, ya might be collidin', provided that those five minutes are all when said ship is in your blind spot. on watch it's important to be relocating every now and again (every two or three minutes) so as to eliminate them blind spots. the deep space thingy was on the watch of miss rose. i went out after dinner was done and donned the binocs, clipped myself in and splayed out on the foredeck by the trampoline for some comfy relaxy observing. we took a look out for corsica and for a few tankers as well. they're totally huge. each a behemoth. and there's shipping galore in the med.
more on DSOs. in the litle star cluster hanging from orion, there's most definitely a cloud of luminscent gas in the middle.. some kind of nebula. very cool. and not terribly visible in manitoba in winter.. i'd likely be able to see it from the cabin by the whiteshell with the telescope there, but it's way less favourable for viewing due to our provinvce's temperature. it's a dry cold. you can dress for it. but that's a more ambitious thing. you can also dress for watch, but it's easy to underestimate how cold it is. or how warm it's not. humidity makes a big diff. so far, i am dressing for driving a boat in november in ontario and it's working just fine. the coldest i have been thus far was after one of my many recreational swims in la grande motte to retrieve one of many key items that failed the DIF* test.
the sea temp claimed to be just under 10°C, but that might have been a surface temp. air in the morning was around 0°C and my swim that day was well before things warmed to the balmy 12°C or so we got in the sunny afternoons. i got good and burnt on our first afternoon and now am once again nerdy about screening, even on cloudy days.
*Does It Float?
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