1/31/12

Noon Position 37 37' S, 79 11'W, COG 245, SOG 5.3, Day's Run 95nm. A
frontal system rolled through this weekend, with the warm front passing
sunday afternoon and the following cold front early yesterday morning.
Whatever low was kicking them out must have been pretty far south and/or
fairly weak, since I only saw 15-20kts in the squalls as the front came
through, but unfortunately it put an end to the wonderful west wind that
let me drive pretty much straight south, leaving me beating against a
slow current into light air - frustrating, especially last night when
the breeze was cycling between 0 and 10 knots with a period of about an
hour. I got some midnight entertainment when I got up in the middle of
the night to roll the genoa to save chafe during a calm, only to
discover that the furler had decided to vomit forth various screws and
bolts all over the deck and into the ocean, rendering it entirely
useless. Midnight roller furling repair is not entirely my idea of a
good time, but at least it was calm when it happened - it would have
been truly atrocious to have discovered the failure in the midst of a
big squall and be stuck trying to wrestle the genoa onto the deck and
out of the sea. Today I took advantage of the calm weather to swap from
the genoa down to the 95% jib, which I plan on having up for the
duration - I'm now down to my "small" suit of sails. Also got to take
care of some minor leakproofing of a few spots that we missed or didn't
quite do a perfect job on in Valparaiso, got the storm jib on deck, and
generally continued to sort the boat out. Also of note is that I cooked
my first actual meal of this leg tonight, (sweet?) potatoes and onions
and garlic in the pressure cooker. I've been really impressed by how
well things have kept - the potatoes and garlic were both from
California, and looked in better shape than their equivalents that I
stocked up on in Chile. At some point I'll put together a blog about
food preservation and longevity, but the key so far seems to be wrapping
almost everything in newspaper and keeping it dry. Onwards to the south!