3/26/12

Noon Position: 43 51' S, 54 55' E, SOG 6.5, COG 065, Day's Run 150nm.
Today I'm 12 hours ahead of California time (barring daylight savings,
which I am not observing, respecting, or acknowledging). I'm also in
what I believe is the region of most magnetic variation that I'll
experience the entire trip - 47 degrees W. I've had time to get used to
it as the variation has slowly climbed, but every now and then I still
get a surprise out of seeing the compass by the mast reading 140 or 150
n the middle of the night, when I know that I should be (and am)
pointing East-ish. I really appreciate having GPS - it functions as my
knot-meter and compass in one, and saves me even having to think about
converting between magnetic and true for the most part (except at 2am
when I can see the compass from my bunk but not the GPS) I grew up in
the era of GPS, so I know I take it somewhat for granted, but in these
latitudes it's a lot nicer than trying to take sun (or heaven forbid -
moon or star) sights - some days the sun never even appears, and there's
frequently enough swell to make the horizon fairly iffy. I'm psyching
myself up today to do battle with mold - every time the boat dries out
after getting really wet all the walls slowly start to develop a fine
dusting of grey, which I of course must now go and wipe off with
bleach. It's not particularly hard or onerous, but I've been
procrastinating on it for a few days, and I decided this morning that
today was the day. I wish that I had thought about both insulation and
ventilation a bit more before I left, it would certainly make life a lot
nicer on the cold, nasty days when everything inside the boat starts
dripping.