It’s been a mellow day here, despite a relatively fast pace. With good conditions and few people, life is pretty chilled aboard, with everything just slotting into it’s own rhythm, and all of us going along with it. The sailing seems to be pretty much looking after itself, with the only noteworthy events being the occasional reef in or reef out evolution. We are still with the same yankee 3 (our smallest headsail) and staysail we left San Diego with, so things are pretty conservative on the foredeck. However, it is allowing us to easily weather the squalls we’ve been experiencing at night with barely a waver in the course, and providing a low-maintenance and low stress sailing experience, which is a nice change to the previous approach of always pushing for an already stretched timeframe.
Having seen the damage Ty can wreak amongst the sails when in ‘racing’ mode, we’re staying firmly at the opposite end of the spectrum for now. We’re now into the new ‘spare’ sails that came with the boat as replacements for those that didn’t survive the 10,000nm of delivery sailing (namely the epic smash up Baja California), so any more damage is going to mean repairs, and I don’t think any of us are that good or keen on sewing.
The Engineer declared that today was the first time he woke up and “didn’t feel miserable”, which means he is now officially ‘adjusted’ back to life on the ocean. Cali has started responding to the question of “how are you “ with something more positive than ‘not terrible’ and immediately vomiting, which means he is also back in the game. Disco is happily settled in to the routine of driving Disco, and has only pointed us towards the moon (i.e. the opposite direction to Hawaii) on one occasion, which is not bad going at all. Finally, it was reported that our Lost Aussie announced earlier that he was “ready for conversation” after a few days of being sleepy, and the familiar tones of his favourite socialism debate graced the deck once again. Things are definitely all feeling in their right place at the moment.
Disco is being unnervingly well behaved, with little to concern or distract her happy crew. The battery charger issues that had plagued my life since our Boxing Day departure from Lymington last year have finally been put to bed, with the newly replaced charger doing a splendid job of keeping the batteries well cycled with minimal generator (and therefore diesel) use. With this previously being a daily drama for the entire delivery to San Diego, it’s really nice to not have to worry (much) about that for now. The most exciting technical challenge that I’ve been afforded so far was changing the paper in the weatherfax machine after it ran out. The biggest challenge there was just finding the spare paper.
In fact, I’ve been reduced to semi-retirement, doing the occasional stint on the helm, cooking, keeping the galley in tip-top shape, and generally wandering around in my slippers the rest of the time. Everyone is so good at helming there aren’t even many opportunities to roar “bear away” in the vague direction of the deck. If things continue I might even make it my bunk before the week is out. Life on the edge here…
NAV STATION
Date: 18th May 2017
Time: 0630z
Position: 28¬°20.1N 125°50.2W
COG: 250-260°T
SOG: 7kts
Wind: N 4
Swell: W/NNW 3-5ft
Sky: Stratocumulus
Weather: Overcast during day, quite squally with showers at night.
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