Just Enjoying The Adventure!

Just Enjoying The Adventure!

I came on watch at 11 pm (on Friday, the 11th). The water is glassy. Still with some swells--always with the swells--but, smoother than we've seen. Better yet, the wind and the swells are working to our benefit for once--north winds that we can ride east, and swells pushing us east. Win-win. (Just as I wrote this, the main started to go limp and then began jerking hard with each puff of wind. Very noisy, which woke up Carey. It happens when the winds are too light and tonight we have varying wind speeds. Nothing can be too easy. Mother Nature reminds us constantly that she's the boss.).


Saturday, November 12

We've been sailing for a full week now. Boy, time flies. The longer we go, the more comfortable we get with everything. It's getting easier every day. I mentioned in our last blog that we are frustrated that we can't sail in a straighter line. Jeanie says we shouldn't be in a rush to get to the BVIs. "Just enjoy the adventure!" She is so right!

By 1:00 am the wind has died down to only 6 knots. So much for making progress in the right direction. Oh, well, it gives us more time to just enjoy the adventure. Right, Jeanie?

Otto, the autopilot, squeals like a stuck pig all the time. It's like he wants our attention, like a spoiled brat. Carey tried to lube him up with WD40, but he's still squealing--day and night. However, I love Otto. Without him we would have to hand steer for 1500 miles. Yikes! Otto must be exhausted. I guess that gives him the right to squeal. (Later, we realized that it only happens in really big seas. He has to work too hard!)

While at sea, we don't sleep in our regular bed. Because it's so rough, we have to sleep in a sea berth, which is a bed in the salon that is very narrow and won't allow us to fall out of bed. In a regular bed, you are constantly bracing yourself as the boat rolls. In a sea berth, you can wedge yourself against one side and just relax. Works great. I'll add a pic when we get to land.

At 1:30 am, the wind died down to 2 knots and the sails were flapping around aimlessly, making lots of noise, but not doing anything. I tried to awaken Carey to help furl the sheets, but he wouldn't wake up. He's a tired boy! So, I furled them myself, then turned on the engine. I hesitate to use the fuel, but the batteries always need to be charged, and we will just be bobbing with no forward propulsion if I didn't use the engine. I turned south and will monitor the wind. Fingers crossed that it picks up soon. The engine is running at 1900 RPMs which is giving us a speed over ground of around 6 knots. Not bad.

Carey woke up at 3:00 and we did the switch. He ran the engine for another half hour and then continued with lowered RPMs at 1500. At 6:30, he raised the sails again (only 7 knots of wind) and turned off the engine. With all of the noise of deploying the sails, I was up out of bed. We switched and it was his turn for a nap. It is getting warmer now. We can do all of our day and night watches in just shorts and a tee shirt. No shoes or socks or pants or jackets required.

My sister, Jeanie, has a million questions. I love it. It really helps me to know what to explain further in my blog. I will try to address some of her questions as we go along.

We just saw a bird! We are about 320 nm from land! He is the size of a sparrow or a wren, brown back and wings, a flash of yellow on his sides, with a white breast. He is resting on the boat, fluttering from stay wire, to lifeline, to jib sheet. When he sits on the jib sheet it rocks back and forth like a hammock. He almost flew into the cockpit area, but turned back at the last minute. Then, he flew right into the screened back window. Poor thing. I think he's exhausted from doing an ocean passage. LOL. Woohoo! We must be getting closer to land!

This morning, we took Jeanie's advice: just enjoy the adventure. No wind, so we furled the jib and main and just bobbed, while we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of omelettes and toast. Toast is such a luxury on a boat; but it was worth the effort. We even had coffee!

Later, we decided that it was calm enough to add one jerry can of fuel to the tank. 'Calm' on the ocean is like a very rolly anchorage in Lake Huron. Imagine two adults, standing on a trampoline, with an 80 pound jug of carcinogenic fluid, trying to pour it into a small hole while contorting their bodies around steering wheels and handholds AND trying not to fall overboard. All this while a six year old is bouncing merrily on the trampoline. It was kind of funny, actually. Well, I thought it was funny. Best news is that we did it without spilling a drop. Yup, sometimes, we rock! LOL

Okay, back to sailing. Our next plan was to put up the Code Zero sail. It's a bigger sail designed for sailing in light winds. Let's hope it works, because we have REALLY light winds--only 5 knots.

By 2:22, we had the Code Zero flying and the engine off. SOG 6.3; 10 knots wind true; COG 148. Battery monitor is at 100% for the first time in many days. Finally! Life is good.

I did a bit of laundry and hung it out to dry. Should be quick, because the sun is hot, and a good breeze is blowing.

It's shower time! Yahoo! We don't get to shower every day, so it's a real treat when we can. We need a day when the seas aren't too rough, and it's a bonus if we've run the engine and have hot water. Today, we meet the criteria. We're heeled over, but in the vee berth head, that means we can have a safe sit shower with our backs to the wall. Ahhhhh, it feels so good to be clean.

The ocean is the most amazing colour of blue. Deep blue, like a newborn's dark blue eyes. So beautiful. Tonight the sky is baby blue with baby pink clouds, and we have almost a full moon. It's amazing how much you can see with a full moon. This will come in handy with our Code Zero being up tonight. We haven't used this sail much, and never at night, so we want to keep a close eye on it.

On our blog page, our friend, Lori, asked: Why did you have to sell your dinghy? No room on the boat to store it? Read that you were thinking of shipping it home at first.

Good question, Lor! Our old dinghy had a soft inflatable bottom. It needed a lot of power to propel it through the water--just too much drag. We needed a hard bottomed boat. One of the reasons is that our dinghy motor is electric. It is very efficient and we don't have to carry gasoline for it. We can just recharge it by plugging it in. However, it doesn't have a ton of propulsion power, so needs a dinghy with less drag, i.e., hard-bottomed. Our new dinghy is a hard bottomed inflatable. It's called a F-RIB--foldable (really important for us to store inside the boat when needed), rigid, inflatable boat. This is the first foldable RIB we've found, so we jumped on it.