Sunday, December 1
With fewer than 240 nautical miles left to go, I’m starting to think about how to slow down right at the end so we don’t come in during the night. Between pot buoys, anchored boats, and the unfamiliarity of the harbor, I’d really rather have light to navigate by.
James is cooking my birthday dinner, spaghetti using the leftover red sauce and adding more yums to it. As is, it’s pretty spicy because of a red pepper pesto, so this should bring it into the realm of warm rather than hot.
The sun is far enough forward for the cabin house to cast a shadow over my legs and the breeze is from the port quarter. The only part of me getting hot right now is the back of my neck and even that is mostly protected by my hat. I love the cooling off part of the late afternoon, all the way to sunset.
Monday, December 2
What a rough night and morning! Squall after squall, winds variable in the extreme, and the dinghy slipped port and forward off the flat fenders creating a noisy dangerous situation.
I tried going to sleep at 2100, not knowing about the dinghy problem, but the noise of it moving got me up. I spent the next fifteen minutes pulling the dinghy back into place and making the starboard side more secure, all in the dark. It was fine for half the night but then James had to go retie the port side, also well before dawn. New moon darkness is harder to work in.
Meanwhile, some of the squalls were introduced by a brief gale on the leading edge. Cetacea and LoveBot did the most amazing thing, basically heaving to (stalling our forward motion) when the wind got too strong. We could have adjusted the control lines on the tiller to get more force sending us downwind, but the waves weren’t dangerous coming broadside and letting the gale pass us made for the quickest way out.
The seas are confused too, and that has meant some bad moments like when Beluga’s water fountain fell right over its tie-down line, the first time that’s happened in 7500 nautical miles, most of which have been ocean. The carpet kept all that water away from the hatch edges and thus off the house batteries, yay.
That was after a knife flew off the angled ledge and scared Beluga so badly he went into freakout mode, bouncing off the cabin sole, bouncing off James’ chest (cat claw punctures hurt!), and streaking into the forepeak. He’s been under the comforter ever since, about two hours now.
The non-Beluga mess is another unprecedented event…we took two waves over the cockpit coaming aft. The swell and the wind waves are bouncing off each other. Some special angle or velocity slopped the water over LoveBot and salt-drenched our rain-washed nas towels.
Speaking of which, it’s time for new towels. We hardly have any that aren’t stained, so it’s hard to tell which are clean and which are nas. They go from the laundry to the galley for drying dishes, then general interior cleaning, then to the cockpit as they take on a staleness or get dirty. Right now, there’s only one single towel that could be called clean. Even the ones in the galley have been hand washed and used again.
Though we have hit some high speeds, our average isn’t all that fast…calms between storms. I think we’ll arrive day after tomorrow and might need to dilly-dally at the end so we have rising sunlight for entering the harbor.
Noon position: N 14° 36.144’ W 058° 28.447’
Distance noon to noon: 97.2 NM
Average speed: 4.06 kn
Trip distance covered: 238.7 NM
Distance to destination: 147.3 NM
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