Marshalls to Alaska Day 10: Steak at Sunset

More repairs and a time to air out blankets.

Greetings,

We have had such benign conditions for the last few days that it is beginning to feel like we are on holiday!

The sea state continues to be calm, and we are doing a combination of motoring, sailing with genoa, and sailing with spinnaker. The flat conditions have opened up the upper deck to the older kids, who have been finding shady nooks to read or do crafts away from the confines of the cockpit. We have all commented that this is the longest stretch of relaxed sailing that we have enjoyed in our seven years of cruising. In general, sailing has been hard work, and the means to an end, but it has not been either relaxing or enjoyable. This is a nice change!

So calm.  The bow looks funny without the anchor.

Of course, there is really no such thing as a holiday at sea, so Max spent the latter part of the afternoon transferring diesel from some of our jerry cans into our aft tank. Even with the siphoning pump this can be a messy evolution, so we try to take care of it when the sea is slight. Watching the bits and pieces of garbage floating by, we are reminded of an individual in Mexico who recommended stocking up on diesel and then tossing the empty containers over the side. Thankfully, attitudes like his are in the minority! We expect to show up to Dutch Harbor with our collection of empty jerry cans carefully fastened to our upper decks.

We also put the kids to work this afternoon. We noticed some pin-prick holes in our spinnaker when we flew it yesterday, so Victoria and I laid it out on the foredeck to patch it with sail tape. We had already hung our collection of blankets on the lifelines to air out, so the narrow walkway outboard of the shrouds was quite congested with flapping fleece and billowing spinnaker, but we managed to work our way up towards the top of the sail, lifting the sock and then binding the sail with sail ties to keep it tamed. We hadn't quite finished the patching (although we had had a lovely mother-daughter connection) when it was time for me to go off-watch, so Johnathan took over as the 2nd pair of hands, and the two kids worked together to finish the handful of repairs. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way just how delicate the fabric was when it came out the worse for a brush against one of our shrouds (since covered with electrical tape) so Victoria and Johnathan had a little more work to do than I had first anticipated. After all the hours spent fixing our kites this season, it seemed quite familiar to be swabbing with alcohol, cutting rounded patches to size, peeling backing paper, and rubbing thoroughly to create the bond!

Repairs and airing out.

Lots of practice with repairs after a season kiting now applied to our spinnaker.

Our dinner tonight had traveled a long way to be on our table - all the way from NZ to be exact. When I provisioned last year, I included a few packages of nice steaks for special occasions, and we still had one in the freezer. When I noticed this while taking inventory back in Majuro, I determined that steaks were compact enough to remain in the freezer for the first half of the passage (unlike the roast chicken, and the extra large package of fish that would do too many meals for an at-sea menu, that were served up in Rongerik). I decided that they would be ideal for a nice dinner during the forecasted calm period between the trade winds and the variables. I didn't know at the time that I would have my choice of so many nights on which to serve them! In true passage-making style, we accompanied the steaks and bbq onions with instant mashed potatoes, canned corn, and bean sprouts :) With the sun setting beside us, and all five of us gathered together in the cockpit, we truly had saved these steaks for a special occasion.

only 1753 nm to go !  You can see the wind dropped from 4 to almost 2 kts so slow going.  At this speed it will only take 1132 hours (49 days) to get to the Aleutians.

One of the things we noticed when we first arrived in the tropics was how quick the transitions were from daylight to darkness. One moment we had full sun, the next it had dropped below the horizon, and the next it was pitch dark. Conversely, as we sail north, we are noticing and appreciating the return of twilight. Especially as the moon has waned, and we have had more hours of darkness in which to stand watch, we are thankful for the extended light that comes with northern sunsets. This has been a noticeable change over the last 3-4 days, and of course, it will only increase as we continue north. We will have to be disciplined with our evening watch rotations based on the clock, as our usual approach of having dinner over and watches started by sunset will not give Max much sleep!

We have been marking distance milestones with chips on this passage, but Max and I each marked a milestone of another sort this week: 30 years ago we both joined the Canadian Armed Forces. No new member really knows what they are in for, but I especially would never have predicted that I would find myself 30 years later crossing the Pacific in a sailboat. We are glad of our time in uniform, and send greetings to our friends and colleagues across the country who are marking similar milestones.

The photo - as a cadet at RMC - is not quite from 30 years ago but pretty close.

We expect our at-sea holiday feeling to continue for another few days: the winds are expected to be light for another 6 deg of latitude (at least 360 nm of sailing) before they fill in.


Love to all,
Elizabeth

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At 2019-06-10 12:32 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 29°49.91'N 166°37.48'E

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