SailBlog

Happiness and Gepetto NE of Salvador Brazil, West of Angola, Africa S 11* W 22* CPM 10 09252015 2000UTC

Today I crossed 10* S, a small milestone as it is halfway to 20S, a point where I will hope to start to make more of a SE course. There I can expect the wind to start to vary with the storm fronts to the south, shifting the High system and frontal boundaries with each one. Though the average wind will remain an ESE breeze, anything can happen, from very light variable winds to NW winds blustering to gale force.

As I watch the forecast charts, the changes are rapid and quite dramatic. I have one more week before I will be living and breathing the forecasts, working my way to the Great Cape Hope.

It is approximately 3600 nm to the Cape. Averaging 100nm a day, an approximately Nov 1 rounding, though it is a large 'cape' as Africa is 10* wide there, 600 nm. It will take a week to actually pass by the territory out of the harms way of where the Indian Ocean currents dramatically meet the Southern Ocean currents.

During my first circumnavigation, this was a perilous area for me...my spine is tingling thinking of it. Not only did I do those two largest storms, seeing the largest cascading mountains of my trip, but just afterwards, I was stopped dead in the water, winds on the nose, as if in the North Atlantic Gulf Stream, unable to go east, instead being force farther south before I could clear the 'river'. I went as far south as 43* before I saw my COG and Compass heading begin to align once more.

Today I really needed to reckon with my lack of positive energy and mode of operation. I am tired of feeling so 'blah'...

I did take a good nap...that helped. But then I closed my book on how to write fiction and found the two very small little pocket sized books I carry with me that, in the fewest words, tell it all. The Way of Love by Anthony DeMello is a 4" by 5" precious morning meditation book, 31 chapters...a monthly read. I wish I did. I opened it after my nap and within a few hundred words of the first chapter, I remembered the transformational nature of the book. I also recognized many ideologies which I have adopted to my own.

The first chapter hit the nail right on the head of all I hope to accomplish during my sail: To develop the habits that will allow me to fill my being with energy from the true infinite sources of life in nature and consciousness giving me true happiness, not just a contrived high that is based on stealing energy from others. Anthony said it brilliantly...Are we looking for self-agrandizement or true self-fulfillment...the first we get from the accolades of others, the second we feel when we are true to our self, accomplishing our personal goals, enjoying true intimacy with friends, inspiration. Within minutes of opening the pages of this little book, my whole being sighed, breathed in the fresh air my negativity was refusing to allow...breathing out the old acidic air.

The second little book is a pocket version of Celestine Prophecies 9 elements by James Redfield. I was able to read through all nine elements in less than a half hour. They were famiiliar to not only my mind but my being, as these ideologies have also become a foundation to much of what is my world view and energy paradigm of life.

It was Redfield who introduced me to the idea of life dramas, the method we all develop to steal energy from others to fill our extrinsic energy needs. Not unlike DeMello, Redfield understands that socialization intentionally leaves us empty of energy so we need to cling to its accolades for it. The nine elements include a full mention of why the world lives in the pathways we see today and how we can choose to live free from the dramas, filled with infinite energy and positive intuitions, building conscious friendships, living in synchronicity.

Wow...I feel a rush of endorphins flood over me. I have to go on deck, my face immediately bathed in sunshine, my lungs filled with the fresh cool air. I take a cleansing breath...a sigh. Yes, I am happy, not just a mental acknowlegment of how blessed I am, and I am...but a lifting of an oppression and an opening of myself to the beauty and energy around me.

I am surprised to find that I am so dependent upon these writings...as I want so much to be a student of consciousness here with the ocean, but Hallelujah. Rereading these masterful writings has given such a confirmation of all that they brought to me that is now my own deep belief. Gaining the practice of living continually iin these mantras is now the very discipline that I came to sea to develop. Instead of redefining these truths, having them so brillaintly before me can allow me to invest my energy living in them.

It is not unlike my experience navigating. I would love to master celestial navigation to find my way yet, getting my tracking position has been an incredible benefit, allowing me to spend more time writing. I have nine months to master CN. Again, in the upcoming challenge getting through the Cape and the adjacent currents may present an important time to take advantge of that option...it will allow me to be safer amidst the conditions.

I am preparing for the upcoming Eclipse Super Moon. This early evening I was able to get some photos of the 'man in the moon'. As the moon rotates in the southern hemisphere, the orientation of my 'old man in the moon' now reveals my 'Gepetto', as the attached photo shows. I have to say that the face we see in the moon in the north has always kind of spooked me, looking like a mask more than a face to me. It was elation I felt when I first saw the gentle face of Gepetto looking down on me. I felt much safer somehow and at the time I was facing the Southern Ocean, all unknown territory.

I went over the boat today hunting a better shroud fix and found the right shackle I was missing. I was able to make another repair using just shackles. It is not tensioned as well as it was with the line, but when the wind settles down, I can retune the whole rig so that I can tension the port side first allowing me to tension the port shroud with the screw end, and then tighten the starboard side on it.

Keepin On Sailing On a Dream.... Happiness is a state of being that is a reality as soon as we see truth; we are perfect in this moment, with only the most enriching outcomes ahead. But maintaining our energy level so that we can 'feel' that euphoria of joy requires discipline of the mind, the body, and our energy paradigm. We cannot feel the happiness we may know is ours if our energy level is too low to actually appreciate it. Today it was reading my favorite mantras right from those mentors that first help me to be transformed that opened my capacity to receive ... hallelujah.!!

Fairest of winds and the love of the ocean Only Gratitude Donna