Thursday August 3
Day 10 to Horta, farther east than I’ve ever sailed…
699.4nm in and 1117nm to Horta
1:29 pm:
Charlie Echo Tango Alpha Charlie Echo Alpha is an incredible sailing vessel. We (Beluga Greyfinger, Dena and I) are all gravitationally inclined (huddled down below decks) to starboard. Cetacea does the rest…all I can do is trust the work we’ve done.
Below decks on S/VSN-E Cetacea…full-on storm (F-8ish) abovedecks…Dena and I hanging with the cat talking about…us, stuff down below.
We live here.
…And this shit is hard.
We don’t actually go out of our way for the hard bits but is sure nice to see our hard work make those bits a little easier on us.
Dena’s first overnight watch, 9pm to 9am
9:10pm: We’re trying a new thing.
With the weather we’ve been having, there’s not much to do on watch. Even the supervisory aspect is just not that demanding.
We’re going to take a page out of the singlehanders’ book and do more sleeping on watch. We’re also going to trade off entire nights.
I’m first.
So tonight I have the AIS alarm to let me know if anyone is within a half hour of getting within 2 miles. I’ll set the alarm on my phone for an hour each time and do my general checks…course, vessels, Lovebot, look around for anomalies.
That’ll still be more sleep than most nights, and James will be totally off, barring the kind of situation that requires us both. I’ll wake him to back me up if I need to go forward to reef, for example.
That’s not an issue tonight…we’re reaching under 60% yankee alone.
So yeah. It’s an experiment. Now’s the time! August 4
Friday August 4
7:53 am: Almost 8 and I’d say the experiment is a success. I only had to intervene in Cetacea’s course twice. The wind slowly veered westerly all night and then took a decidedly westerly turn around 5. We’re now running under full yankee.
Sleeping below, I didn’t get the philosophical pleasures of being out in the world at night, but it was a cloudy one. The moon is dissolving with eerie quickness and, once there are stars visible, I can imagine staying out for the pleasure of it. Not all night, just enough to satisfy my attraction to the night sky.
