11-10-11

Noon Position: 29 50.9' N, 119 01.9' W, SOG 4.5, COG 225, Days Run
106nm. It's been a frustrating few days - breeze has been up and down,
I had a full day yesterday of broad reaching to running wing on at 6-7
knots, only to end up rolling around all night with a triple reefed main
to keep the slatting down. Today I was able to get the chute up and
have been doing 3-4 knots all morning, but it's been getting a bit
lighter - unfortunately it looks like thats whats in store for tomorrow
too, before I get Southerlies (hopefully some SW in there) coming
through on Friday with the big storm. Right now I'm slowly working my
way East, so that hopefully I can see more of the W component of the
breeze from the storm, and then close reach in a SE'ly direction, but
we'll see how that pans out - it's frustrating rolling around going slow
- right now (1321 California time) I'm only doing 2.4k. Thank god for
the spinnaker - without it up I'd just be sitting here complaining.
Mentally the last few days have been challenging and fairly emotional -
I found myself questioning many times (particularly when I was rolling
around with no wind) what I was doing out here. The weather has a very
real impact on my mood - as long as the boat is moving with some
semblance of poise I'm happy, then when we slow down I start getting
morose again. It's sobering realizing that (if all goes well) I won't
see any of the people that I know or care about (or even those that I
don't particularly like ;) ) for the next seven months. The other
challenge I've been fighting with is the not so amazing discovery that
if you're running downwind to the south, and the sun is to the south,
the sails are going to be shading the boat pretty much all day - nice
for me, but not so nice for the solar panels. I've been broad reaching
back and forth a bit to keep at least one panel in the sun, and it's
working - I've got my battery voltage back up again. Fortunately once I
get south of 20S or so this will cease to be a problem, since the sun
will be behind me. Fortunately with this light air, it's actually been
good to be broad reaching anyway just to keep boat speed and apparent
wind up, so all is well. Anyway, we're just passing Guadeloupe Island
off of Mexico - at least it's progressing down the side of the boat, not
just sitting in the same spot like San Clemente did leaving LA.