At Sea again
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sat 9 Jan 2010 15:12
Course: South Speed 4.5 knots
Wind: South west, gentle breeze
Weather: Sunny, mild
Day´s Run: 92 nm
We are at sea again, hooray!
For now the sun is shining, we have a gentle breeze filling the sails and we are making a very pleasant 3 ½ knots into the wind. I should probably shake out the reef in the mainsail but no hurry. The conditions won´t last of course, but we will enjoy them while they do. I had hoped to have been able to have remained closer to the coast during the night but the wind has gradually veered into the west and pushed us east of our desired course. At least we will have plenty of sea room to deal with whatever comes our way.
My thoughts for now are contemplating the exploits of old Josh Slocum, pondering how he managed to negotiate the Magellan Straits single handed in his shoal draft, beamy, gaff rigged, engineless, wooden Spray with only rudimentary charts. With a none so reliable an engine myself and in need of a new starting battery we may well find ourselves in a similar position somewhere along the line. Also as we left I realized the prop has started to become foul with growth ´while we were alongside in Mar Del Plata which greatly reduces the engines power. I shall be looking for the first opportunity to scrub it, either by duck diving or careening. If I can find a suitable location to careen, that is to beach Sylph and give her bottom a leisurely scrub in between tides I will. It beats diving under the boat in these increasingly chilly waters. Greg rightly admonished me for sailing with a weak engine battery, and offered me all sorts of advice but in the end I felt we were ready to sail and I was impatient to move on. We will solve our problems along the way.
In the meantime I will continue to ponder the mystery behind old Josh´s solutions to some of these problems.
All is well.
Bob Cat:
For once I agree with the skipper. The sun is shining, I have found a nice comfortable spot in the quarter berth, the gentle roll is very relaxing, a refreshing cool breeze tickles my ears and indeed all is . . . Zzzzzzzz.
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