Saturday, July 6 Dena’s 1600-1700 watch The weather’s settled a little or, more likely, getting a little distance from the rapids of the continental shelf at a cape has improved the character of the waves. On my last watch, I finished Iain M Banks’ Look to Windward. The idea of remorse and despair so deep that oblivion is preferable got me crying a bit there at the end, so I put my book down and pulled my sunglasses off. As I rubbed the tears into the skin of my cheeks, I looked across the water and a flock of flying fish hopscotched past going the other way. Life and death. After the heart-wringing display, I was left thinking, hoping quite fervently, that I never do anything that I feel such remorse about. And then backed up another step and hoped that I never hide from remorse if it’s warranted. Deep thoughts on the deep ocean. Dena’s 2000-2100 watch I just shook the second reef. The apparent wind has become pretty light, especially when the waves push us faster. If the 4 day old weather forecast is correct, this will work until Tuesday. A nice flattening of the wind waves doesn’t change the fact that we have two different swell directions. One is nearly perfectly astern and we ride those nicely. The other is about 60° west of that, so it hits us pretty broad on the starboard quarter. The times when they multiply each other’s forces…yikes. Basically, we’re at sea. We shouldn’t set random objects on flat surfaces and expect them to stay put. On the other hand, nestling a couple of eggs I’m about to scramble for fried rice in a towel and then having them leap across the counter because of a big combo wave? Yeah, frustrating. In[…]
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