6/10/12

Noon Position: 22 24' S, 125 52' W, SOG 6.5, COG 045, Day's Run 125nm.

6/8/12

Noon Position: 25 31' S, 127 55' W, SOG 4, COG 080, Day's Run 65nm.
The transition in ecosystems from the south to the tropics is becoming
clear - three days ago a big albatross wandered by, looking a bit
confused, then yesterday morning I was visited by a tropic bird, who
hovered overhead despite all my shouting and waving, as if trying to
decide whether it was worth it to befoul my sails. The birds in the
southern ocean were, in addition to being rather stately, far cleanlier
than tropical birds, who seem to take joy in leaving presents of
excrement or regurgitated fish on travelling boats. For two mornings
now I've woken up to find a fat juicy flying fish or two on deck, and my
sleeping bag now only serves as a bottom sheet, a buffer against the
damp cushions. Sunrise yesterday was spectacular and red, and perhaps I
should have heeded the rhyme, for in the last 24 hours I have gotten to
enjoy a fabulous 400 degree wind shift, backing from NE all the way
around the compass back to NE, then onwards to just W of North again. I
have also been graced with the privilege of enjoying wind speeds ranging
from glassy, drizzly calms that had the sails and boom slamming and
slatting recklessly, to wind strong enough that twice now I've had to
heave to and wait for it to decrease. At least in all of these
shenanigans I've managed to claw my way 65 miles closer to the trades,
one day closer to escaping this obnoxious muddle of wind.

6/6/12

Noon Position: 27 27' S, 127 30' W, SOG 5, COG 055, Day's Run 100nm,
Week's Run 620nm.
Numbers!
Miles Sailed since just before Tasmania: 4799nm
Average Day's Run: 114nm
Average Speed Sailed: 4.75kts
Miles Sailed since Valparaiso: 15934nm
Average Day's Run: 119nm
Average Speed: 4.9kts
Miles Sailed since Los Angeles: 22687nm
Average Day's Run: 115.75
Average Speed: 4.82kts
I was all set to complain about the slow week's run, but then looking
over old logs to come up with the numbers since LA I found a week's run
of 562 and another of 495... Of all the terrible places to sail east
in, the middle of the variables off of the coast of Chile was certainly
one of the worse picks.

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...

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. The electronics holocaust also continued last night, as
I was awakened in the wee hours by an obnoxious beep, and hurtled out of
bed, my still sleep-fogged mind thinking that the AIS alarm was warning
me of some nearby ship - nope. Despite being turned off, the inverter
was beeping like a dying animal, and when I tried turning it on, only
beeped louder, accompanied by blinking error codes on the little display
and horrible grinding noises from the fan. I put the spare in this
morning, so at least I still have power - the inverter survived all
sorts of abuse in the southern ocean, only to finally die a horrible
beeping death in relatively mild conditions.

6/2/12

Noon Position: 30 40' S, 133 07' W, SOG 4.5, COG 320 (I'm going to tack
soon), Day's Run 75nm. Well, we're fully ensconced in the variables,
the Horse Latitudes of youre. When I switched from jib to Genoa a few
days ago I thought it would be a good way to bring the wind, since
typically as soon as I increase sail area the wind picks up so as to
make it unmanageable, but instead the breeze slowly died - We are
definitely dealing with the vindictive winds of the 40s no more. I had
forgotten how big the genoa was - I can't believe that I sailed some
3500 miles on the way out with it up, although I suppose I am a bit
biased from the last few months. It's been nice to have the big
headsail, since sailing on the starboard tack I can't set the drifter
without some nasty halyard chafe, so it's let me keep moving in this
light stuff. I haven't had any really long glassy calms since I last
posted, just light and variable wind, leaving me slapping around at 1 or
2 knots for half an hour, then rushing along fully powered up at 6 kts,
then back to 3, and so on, all with changing directions too. I'm hoping
this wind continues to back into the NW or W and I can get some
spinnaker action going, to start really cranking out the miles in this
light stuff, but we shall see.

5/31/12

Noon Position: 32 18' S, 135 12' W, SOG 3, COG 020, Day's Run 60nm.
RIP Kindle #2... I discovered yesterday afternoon in a horrible
confluence of technology that if you drop a satellite phone onto the
screen of a Kindle, said screen will no longer function. I can now read
only the very bottom line on each page on my second kindle, worse than
the bottom half of the page that I could read on the first broken one.
This does at least give me fewer reasons to avoid cleaning, so I spent
the morning (mostly becalmed, winds light and variable) scrubbing,
drying, and de-molding. Odyssey is starting to approximate a habitable
space again.