23.26.30 N
018.45.15 W
0900
09.09.08
s/y safari
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been at sea a while. no writing.
file under: 'if'n ya can't say anything nice.'
it's getting hot. new strategy: reading reclined on the floor in my quarters is significantly cooler. several degrees. if i wasn't concerned about possible abrasions, i would go trailer park and line the windows with tinfoil.
the water ration is too low. for a minute there i thought that it would be bumped up to 2L per day. but only for a minute. then russ figured out that teri was unconcerned about being dehydrated. i think when arriving in antigua in march i was closer to 5 L a day. that matthew's claim that 10 L per day per person is a good idea, i'm still not certain. but certainly limiting oneself to 1.5 L per day is less awesome than aiming high. less energy. the idea was, if you feel dragged out, you're probably dehydrated. if you have a headache, you're probably dehydrated.
problem i) i like coffee. a diuretic.
problem ii) by setting a low limit, i consistently fall under it, so i am likely consuming less water in a 24 hour period than i am 'allowed:' plain fact is, we'll not run out in any way, but there's this rationing mentality nonetheless.
and the food. life's too short to eat crappy food. but there should at least be enough of it. starting to feel like the food allotments are also too low. seeing as we're basically in the 'work for food' category. halfway to the other side of the pond, i should hope to do an inventory and evaluate how much food we /actually/ have. i am quite certain we're going to throw a pile out when we get to the other side. i'm not super cranky about luxury items: cheese, butter, jam, sugar cookies. but it'd sure be great to have more pasta. crackers. piece of bread. i know what's here, when we get 'there' we'll have to give away bags of flour, rice, pasta. i'll be profoundly frustrated each time i leave the table hungry. the problem in sailing with people whose metabolisms are not geared to an active life.
there's a funny taste in the water. in soup. in pasta. in coffee. heaven forbid that you'd want to sup a glass of the boat's fresh water supply. i once thought it would change if we flushed the tank with fresh. nope. i gradually eliminated variables. i was cooking with it when i first noticed it. i thought i'd put too much black pepper in a soup and consequently it was all bitter. i thought someone who shall remain nameless let the coffee boil, making it bitter. ruining an otherwise innocent and tasty brew. not so. (or not only that.)
am wondering if it's in the hose that brings the water. i have had water that tastes like a hose before and it's not wonderful. or if it's the plastic water tanks. or if it's the chemical we were told about that was used in the tanks. (we did rinse, but i am convinced though i was not enough assertive about this, that we missed on
the proper amount. at the beginning of this trip we were to flush the tanks with 9000 L of fresh. well, we certainly did fill the tank 3 times. but we should have filled it four times. hmm. and why was i not assertive about this?)
no way to know. no way to disguise it.
hungry. starting to find food loathsome. hungry.
i observed it putting up all of its sails.
better than tv.
sailing. not a tremendous amount of wind, but sailing. that improves things more than slightly. far superior to rotting in port. the waiting around was really getting to me. there's still a certain amount of anxiety, i suppose, or at least apprehension about the weather we may encounter. for what it's worth, daily grib files, certainly the sat pics of hurricane ike were cause for concern. though we're not likely to head into anything. we're told that september
is the busiest month. (not for transatlantic boat traffic, but for tropical revolving storms.)
still, we've weather routing, daily grib files, and meteo france's daily weather broadcast. so we're well advised about what is what.
