1/5/12

Noon Position: 31 23' S, 79 03' W, SOG ???, COG ???, Day's run 80nm.
Apparently I rejoiced in wind too soon - Today from about 3 AM until at
least 6 PM I've been brutally becalmed. It's frustrating, I'm so close
to being able to get out of this stupid weather and, by all rights, I
should be far enough east to be fully into the Southerlies that I'd
hoped for, but instead, I'm sitting here in glass, watching miniature
man-o-wars sail past me. This afternoon I've had a touch of hope - a
few breaths of wind, Southerly wind, too, which is promising,
interspersed with calms. I keep telling myself that it's going to
build, and that I'll be able to run the last few degrees of longitude
off quickly, but I feel like I'm just trying to make myself feel
better. I need to get out of these calms soon - I'm starting to lose my
ability to deal with them patiently, which is, of course, the only way
to deal with them, since getting angry accomplishes nothing. I just had
hoped that my suffering was over, that I finally had wind, but the
weather seems determined to taunt me once more. While rolling about
today with sails down I finished re-reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem on
my kindle. He's an incredible world builder in all of his books, and
Anathem is no exception. The first half of the book really shines, with
all the drama focused within the walls of the math - I had forgotten
that it got a little weaker as it turns into more of an adventure novel
in the second half, but still a good enough read to occupy my
afternoon. I'm going to go try to coax some sort of sailability out of
this breeze now - hopefully I get out of this eventually...