Monday, June 4, 2012

6/4/12

Noon Position: 30 11' S, 130 00' W, SOG 5, COG 075, Day's Run 115nm.
An Unpleasant night - by 10:45 or so I was bashing upwind with a triple
reefed main and partial genoa, which is not in any way, shape, or form
an appropriate upwind sail when rolled that much. Every time we dropped
off a wave a little video clip from the america's cup a few years back
ran through my head, of Team New Zealand launching off a big wave upwind
and crashing down hard in a plume of bow spray, and instead of stopping
it's plunge like the hull, the mast kept going, crumpling (in slow-mo)
over the side. I finally got the boat throttled back enough to fall
asleep, only to be awakened from a disturbing dream of Christmas
shopping while being pursued by government thugs through an underground
warren of basements and tunnels by a new and obnoxious beeping. I
stumbled out of bed, still fogged with sleep, thinking that perhaps the
AIS alarm had somehow gotten a new sound over all these months of
inactivity, and rushed to the chart table. Nothing - no lights
blinking, no messages flashing, just an obnoxious beep. I finally
figured out that it was the continuance of the electronics holocaust
that has engulfed Odyssey these last few days - the inverter, despite
being turned off, had managed to do something unpleasant in it's innards
and wanted to let me know. I turned it on and the beeping intensified,
accompanied by blinking error codes and horrible grinding noises from
the fan. I finally had to disconnect the power to get it to shut up and
let me get back to sleep.
Whenever I've been feeling melancholy of late my eyes have turned
towards Cape Horn on my little inflatable globe, back towards the
southern ocean. In a spurt of curiosity, I downloaded the Chilean
weather forecast for Cape Horn this afternoon:

ZONE EIGHT (F.EVANGELISTAS TO LAT 60 DGS SOUTH):
EVANGELISTAS TO LAT 56 DGS SOUTH: WIND SW 30/40 KT (GALE) GUSTY 80 KT,
SEA STATE 7.0/9.0 M, VIS MODERATE SLEET/SNOWFALL, OVC.

That snapped me out of it pretty quick - suddenly 25 kts on the nose doesn't seem so bad anymore...

1 comment: