Saturday 2 July 2022

As wind and sea build, ride is becoming a shade more boisterous, but still generally comfortable. Conditions should continue to pick up somewhat through Sunday, then possibly another little jump on Tuesday, but afterward perhaps for duration, very Pacific (a little adolescent nautical humor - chuckle, snort). This, of course, assumes GRIB (Guilty Responsibility of Indeterminate Boobs) is somewhere in the neighborhood of correct.

On passages Freezing Rains don't use gimbaling stove for cooking and to keep open containers stable in a seaway. Instead, suspended above it is a free swinging, single burner jobbie using a camping bottle for ballast and to heat a single pot or tea kettle. Works OK when using your extra hands and prehensile tail to hold plates, bowls and cups level, but lower orders of humanity with only two grasping appendages find it difficult to, for example, make two cups of tea without creating a mess on the countertop. And don't even think about that five course meal you read about in your cruising cookbook. One learns quickly that virtually everything on a boat is some kind of compromise. Galley area here is small and bottom of oven on starboard tack swings into leg room, so Marie likes this better, but it is inconvenient. Seems an unfortunate design decision for such a fine boat.

Cargo ships and tankers. They're everywhere. Earlier contacts may have been going to Singapore, latest possibly China or Japan. It's a big ocean and none have been closer than fifteen nm, but Freezing Rain's AIS antenna is atop the mast and somehow reaches out fifty or more. Antenna on Anthem is at deck level so we're lucky to detect a target before its crew can wave a hanky at us. Alarm tone sounds with other vessel at around two nm and approaching. In worst possible scenario when intersecting at a closing speed of twenty five knots, that gives us a smidge under five minutes to contemplate, rewrite and launch in a bottle any last minute codicils to our wills before getting smashed like a snail under a steam roller. Usually, however, we just turn out of the way. Did anyone mention that before adding blue tooth speaker to system in Anthem, the old guy who hung around jet engines all his life couldn't hear high pitched warnings from plotter?

"What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." ~~~ Dave Barry

Jack & Jan