18.36.46 N
35.10.15 W
1430 utc-2
16.09.08
s/y nina
_______________________
neglected to notice bruising on my chest. it's a physical record that i was mostly using my right hand to do the work. and that i was up there way too long, while accomplishing basically nothing. when i got down i saw what had been sent up the inside of the mast. it's hard not to be irritated, but there was about an inch of spectra line sticking offa the mousing line. what, no taping the end? we did find, while at a marina that we had to taper the end going into a pulley when mousing a line. and that was not 70' of line. it was horizontal and only about 20 feet through the boom. i feel as though somehow this lesson was lost on my skipper, who also went and had a smoke break while i was up the mast getting bashed over and over again into the mast. sorta feels like sabotage. no wonder i couldn't get the halyard through that pulley.
i thought it slightly suspicious that my headlamp hurt last night when i took it off my forehead. as it bounced once, then twice. then rested in a non-hurty fashion on an inanimate shelf beside the instruments. legs already feel less of a drag. chest feels more of a drag. the spots where the mousing line dug into the flesh in my pinky finger. (both the left and right hands). lost a lot of skin off my heels. i had established some meaningful contact with i think the spinnaker halyard. and there was no way i was letting go, even when i realized it was going to be a doozy of blister. that'll be about week. at least a week. actually, i'm expecting the bruising cycle to take roughly a week. a moratorium on doing pushups. matt had suggested that he got a lot of exercise when standing watch. makes sense to me. i celebrate the beginning of each new hour with a set of exercises when possible. except sort of in the past tense. at least until i stop feeling like i have been visited by a meat tenderizer. some fun in each bicep. and a nice bruise coupled with a stretched ligament limp on the one foot. actually, i guess i was hanging on for dear life. the bruise on the top of my foot is from my other foot, which held me against the mast. rewards for my stubbornness.
it occurs to me that angela from elvis the gecko had a similar problem, but motored to the middle of the closest high pressure system before even thinking about sending anyone up the mast. of course, there are slightly different circumstances here. but still.
i understand that we can see not much more than 25 nautical miles from the centre of our yacht-centric universe. today we're a cloudless zone ringed by a few wisps near the horizon. altocumulus and stratus clouds mostly, some cirrus clouds way to starboard. mostly just lovely. i have invented a shade device i tuck into my hat and into my shirt to keep the sun away. to stave off a gradual rightward shift in my political leaning. or at least to keep my neck from getting too red.
