SailBlog

Out of the grey, creative light...

On the 10th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 10 flying fish !!! (for you MOM)

Today is what we call a cold dreary day...light winds on the stern, wallowing in yesterday's left over sea swells, grey overcasted clouds, but none of the much needed rain seems to fall, and it would be the perfect day to collect rain, if it would rain...it is a day that does not appear to be a giver... I just want to stay tucked into bed and let the soggy world lend itself to meditation, nothing earth shattering to get up to..accept that I had to go pee...the world's best alarm clock.

I had been up in the night putting up the whisker pole to manage the clocking winds to stern, knowing that at some point today I would need to swap the whole sail plan to the other side ... I have a front approaching late tomorrow with a shift to NW winds late today into the night...but then those winds are going to blow for 2 days... two glorious days of progress...

My energy gets exicted about that. I get up for the morning wee constitution and find my self starting to putter around... I was thirsty and had exhausted all of my alotted drinks early yesterday so ... I went ahead with my morning tea, setting my oatmeal to cook, cutting my fruit into little bits to sweeten it... my dried blueberries and cherries add color... amazing how after so many days, this is still such a pleasure.

i am lured to the computer to see what emal Bob had sent overnight... as there wasn't a night email the day before...It is hard to keep the days and nights in order with what day it is. And soon it will all be tossed up as I cross the date line and back up a day, then behind Bob... All great moments of milestones.

Today it is the first day of real summer, according to Bob McD as it is the longest day of the year. Surely the dawns are early and dusk still lingering til nearly 2200, or 10pm. I am at 46*S far south... the same north latitude as the corner where the Great Lakes meet, the north end of Nova Scotia or the boundary between Oregon and Washington States. So a bit north from my hometown at around 43*N.

The day is not as bitter cold without the galing winds, for sure...the pressure is back up to 1025 from 992 just 36 hours before... a cloudy high... and it is the rolly state that gets to be a bit bothersome..

But I find myself bored this morning. I couldn't get focused on anything...the day wasn't giving anything much to go on... and then I set to take a warming up under my blankets... spending time in meditation, centering myself and asking for a bit of creative energy for the day to get things going. So when I got up, I put out a text to my great friend musician and vocal vertuoso.. Tina... to see if she would send me the lyrics to 'You Are My Sunshine" ... maybe today I would look at creating some fun lyrics that work out here, with my birds...it is totally inspired by my mother who loves the sea...She and my father took two different tall ship cruises on the ocean...She lovees my tales of flying fish finding their way to my frying pan for breakfast, rescuing an Albatross from the grip of my fishing lure it so curiously had to try to play with it... We had one of our weekly or so chats and I told her how i always sing 'You Are So Beautiful To Me" to the birds..she suggested th at I sing" You Are My sunshine....I have been ever since.

The wind did start to clock enough that i needed a dead downwind course to go due east so at t his point, I could swap the sailing plan to wing on wing on the other side, the mainsail on a starboard tack, allowing me to sit on my bed without falling off... It is a bit of a process as you all know very well to swap it all around. But I had been considering a change in the way I had the jib sheets lead and I was going to make it happen today.

The new Genny has been spectacular for all of my sailing needs as the winds go from so little wind to gale force day by day...It is made tough enough to manage when it has to be furled for heavy winds, yet it is supple enough for light wind. But the Genny is a 150% sail, and a strange shape. It was not working to lead the sheets through my usual jib sheet block, even set farther aft on the track. I had just installed new spinnaker blocks on the rail aft of where my winches are mounted... I didn't hesitate, I just lead the sheet there and then to the winch...It has worked fabulously.

But there were two gliches. When I have to release the sheet to furl the sail, it becomes very slack and flogs around so hard, whipping my hands as I try to use the winch to furl the sail... it is dangerous and troublesome ... the second gliche is that the angle of the sheet from the clew to the block when the sail is not on the pole is such that it actually hits the boom when i am sailing off the wind and the boom is out perpendicular to the boat... the real problem comes when I reef the main as the sail falls down along the sides of the boom, even when I tie them . I have already had damage done to the mainsail and had to do a repair to ensure the sail didn't tear where the boom had rubbed through the fabric.

I have been considering moving the jib sheet blocks to the very aft end of the tracks and trying it there. By moving the sheet to the jib track, it will angle the sheet away from the boom altogether and the sheet will not interfere with using the winches.

On the starboard side, the car that rides on the track with the block, does not slide all the way back...it gets impinged on the track... an older bronze track, a tad bigger than the standard 1 1/4" jib track made out of stainless steel though rated the same. So I decided to take the tme to get out my files and see if I could hewn the track down to where the block would slide all the way back..it wouldn't be a lot of metal to take down, just a smoothing out, I thought... so I went to work once I located my files and I got a hammer. Bronze is soft enough that a bit of persuasion may go a long way toward getting a bit more out of the track.

Sure enough a half hour later, I had the car near to the end of the track. So before resetting the jib to the other side, I set the sheets into the jib track blocks, now as far aft as they will go...It worked out fine for using the pole...that is a great relief. But the real test will be the first time I set the jib without the pole. I will have to see how the sail looks then. I need it to have an even amount of pull on both edges of the sail; the foot of the sail, from the clew to the tack at the bow; and the leech of the sail, from the clew to the head of the sail above... If the angle is too steep downward, the sail will not trim well and I will have trouble getting it to furl properly, rollng consistently on the headstay...so. now that I have fixed the jib sheet block back, it is no problem to change the configuration as needed to what ever works best.

So that was the extent of my creative energy output for the day... I resumed my quest for eating, drinking hot liquids, rubbing my hands together to stay off the cold, and occasional download to check for emails...as you EST folks were still in your day hours.

One was from Jeanne Socrates... What a blessing. She filled me in on her strategies for dealing with gales, and for getting around Tasmania and NZ. She was able to work around the storms well and make a good passage though she did do it getting across the banks. Havng started from British Columbia, Canada, her non stop circumnavigation would take a turn after NZ toward making her way around the Pacific ocean north toward home... It is a more direct itinerary as she avoids the entire need to go so far out of her way to go around South America to return... I have looked at the Panama Canal many times on the chart and thought...wow, that would be so much shorter... It would save thousands of miles.. So Jeanne was on her last legs heading home when she tells the tale of hitting one of the worst storms of her trip in the Pacific at the time of year she was there,

"I had an almighty storm crossing my path from the NNW as I headed up - it caused me a major diversion N to avoid it, and some heaving-to to let it pass to my E not so long after- it's not just the Southern Ocean that has bad weather! But I was into far more wintry weather then, being early May, so you should fare better in January/Feb."

She filled me in on more radio contact information and instructions as well as encouragement as she was able to tell the same soggy , wet , horror stories of trying to manage for so long in a cold damp environment, just as I, relying on hot soups, tea, and cuddling under the blankets to manage to get warm, especially after a dark nght rendezvous with sail changes on deck.

We shared Merry Christmas wishes as I sent back an email thanking her and tossing back some stories of the camaradarie that we share... there are few women our ages that have ever attempted such a trip...in fact, in time... she and I may be the only women who have ever tackled the world non stop...both well over 50 yrs...she just a few years my mentor.

We also shared the amazing privilege that it is to be able to do such a trip...it was equally an incredibly life changing venture. Our meditations share the enlightenment created by the beauty of the sea and the world of living and sailing upon her, the belonging we know here... it is a deep calling we share such a dream... a knowing that we can do the saling...and the ocean will not disappoint us in the glory that would be revealed...

I have a few days of great sailing ahead..then a front will chase me from behind, coming from the NW and west around the 27th... leaving a wake of N and NE winds that will take me to 49*S and a passage, now planned, in the deep water channel just south of the banks... a fast river chute to get me on my way toward Cape Horn..though I will be sure to find out how far north I need to go to get to where it is at least in the upper 50s... I am willing to sail a bit farther to stay a bit warmer over the next two months... I should have a Valentines day approach to Cape Horn... crossing just a week later or so.

Onward tonight to my dinner... writing my blog here, has nicely graced my experience for the late afternoon waiting for dinner time. It won't be long after I am warm and belly full that I will tuck myself into my blankets... to warm up.. the night air has fallen. My hands are no longer remaining at a manageable temperature..they are cold... my feet feeling the drop in temp as well. It is amazing how subtle the change is and then all of a sudden, it IS cold. Time to close up the companionway, save all the heat generated by making dinner to take the chill off...

My sailplan will take me through the night wth only minor course changes expected as the winds may clock farther to the WNW from due West right now. So I will hopefully be able to do a visual compass check from my bed to my compass below and tuck back in. At some point in my night...around 2100, 9pm my local time, your world in EST will come alive at 0600 am... in another day or two...I will pass another time zone... one more to the date line.

In my reading moments of seeking some energy to ingest into my day, I opened O'donohue... "Beauty is at home in this realm of the invisible, the unexpected and the unknown. It emerges from its own depths, sure in poise and generous in possibility . yet there is a certain disturbance in the call of beauty..a displacement . As T.S. Elliot says in 'Journey of the Magi: we can no longer be at ease in the old dispesation. We are forced to recognize somethng new, something that shows up the limitations we have accepted and our subtle but deadening compromises. Beauty calls us beyond ourselves and it encourages us to engage the dream that dwells in the soul." ( Merry Christmas!)

Keepin On Sailin On Caring... I so love those words... "beauty shows us the limitations we have accepted and the deadenng compromises... Beauty calls us beyond... to engage in the dream" ... a vision. What is our vision? 'real' purpose... not one that is put on us by our egos to 'do something good' , to feel good about ourselves.. a true vision is the birth of our true self fulfilling our true potential, yes as a part of a whole organism of life, but it is about revealing our own beauty and life... being able to experience it for ourselves...not for anyone else. Though it will fill the need in the greater universe... it is in the energy that it releases to our own life that is so wonderful and empowers us as we are overflowing with life giving energy... sounds good to me..

Fairest of Winds and the Love of the Ocean Only Gratitude Donna

�"Sent from my RedPort Aurora Satellite Terminal http://www.globalmarinenet.com/product/redport-aurora/ www.globalmarinenet.com www.ushuaialogistics.com www.xaxero.com www.transmarinepro.co.nz http://www.mwxc.com Chris Parker weather services www.jamestowndistributors.com www.bellplantation.om (PB2) www.caphorn.com www.marinemotion.com http://sayitright.com www.yoloadventure.com www.islandplanetsails.com www.baconsails.com