Thursday, November 21
Starting the day with a gentle-feeling breeze that’s still got us going up to 5 knots. I’m thinking favorable current? If so, I hope it keeps up.
The fast part must have been a current that we left behind not long after I wrote that. We’re sailing along just fine, though. There were periods on the way to the Azores when we would have been grateful for this much wind.
James just shaved my head for me. The long part had gotten to the point where it didn’t dry fast enough and that ends up giving me itchy red patches. He did the cut and was all wow you really needed this to which I could only reply yep. Now, I’ll wash with selsun blue for a few days to get back on track and stop going buggy with the constant itching.
Since I took one step to improve my scalp health, I decided to take another. It’s cloudy today and while I know I can still get sunburned, it seems like the right time to clean the inside of my hat band.
That thing, ugh. Between regular skin and hair oils and the copious amounts of sunscreen I apply, it had gotten pretty gross. Like, I was too embarrassed by it to put it upside down on a spare chair at the table in a restaurant.
So I just put a little laundry soap in the lid/cup, drained it back into the soap container, and added water to the residue left in the lid. We have a set of toothbrushes just for cleaning and I scrubbed the whole band with the weak laundry soap. Now it’s sitting, like a pretreatment I guess, and I’ll give it a thorough rinse before the end of this watch.
I love being underway where oddball projects get done. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but it always seemed like the time could be better spent. Now, I’m getting it done while also voyaging across an ocean…and here I consider myself a bad multitasker. Ha!
Friday, November 22
It’s just a few minutes after 2400. I slept well on my off-watch and came up to see a sky full of stars. We were clouded over when I went to bed, so this is an unexpected pleasure.
I’m still full from dinner. I made super-buttery drop biscuits from an online recipe. I’ve been using complete pancake mix for so long that I’m amazed at how easy it was. It’s just flour, baking powder, milk, and salted butter or salt and unsalted butter. I used powdered milk and could probably guess at the ratios and get something edible.
I served them with my favorite soup packet. It’s a sweet potato base with mushrooms and squash bits. Doesn’t need anything added except water.
I do believe this is officially a flock of birds. They’re greater shearwaters if my use of the Audubon field guide is accurate, and we’ve been seeing them mostly two or three at a time. Right now, with the long morning light rays cutting through the water, big fish are leaping out of the water among the dozens of wheeling birds. James watched for quite a while on his last watch and suggested that there’s a bait ball being hunted from above and below. Makes sense to me. Adds a bit of drama to the scene that is otherwise just like yesterday’s and many other days on this leg of our voyage.
Noon position: N 15° 16.692’ W 042° 11.774’
Distance noon to noon: 81.2 NM
Average speed: 3.39 kn
Trip distance covered: 1046.5 NM
Distance to destination: 1092 NM
There’s so much happening under the water. So much happening in the sky. Life seething and roiling all around you while you serenely clean your hat band.
And so it is for all of us, probably. The visible and the hidden are starker in the way you experienced them, perhaps. But anywhere on Earth, change scale, change biome, change position or temperature just slightly, and a whole new world of intrigue and drama reveals itself.