Marshalls to Alaska Day 11: Sunday Routine

Back under genoa.

Greetings,

Another Sunday on board means another bottle of juice :) I divided most my treats (juice, crackers, snacks) into pillowcase-sized bags before we left Majuro, and it has become a Saturday ritual to open the weekly bag in order to put the juice into the fridge for Sunday morning. Benjamin keeps careful track of the days so that we don't forget this ceremony.

We followed up our juice this morning with steak, onions, scrambled eggs with bacon bits, a few leftover pancakes, and coffee for lunch. Johnathan made a pot of chili for us for supper. The conditions are uneventful enough that food has become the highlight of the day's report!

We had genoa winds in the morning, spinnaker winds in the afternoon (from the SE and then from the SW), and no wind tonight. We are crossing an area of high pressure that we are hoping to get through in the next day or so before it enlarges and becomes even harder to pass across. In our (ie Max's, to give credit where it is due) analysis of all the historical data, this seems to be an anomaly year; we expected a period of calm, but not this early or this wide. I am hoping that we will somehow gather great speed once the wind fills in, and make up some time on the remainder of the trip. As ever, we can only sail the conditions we have on the day that we have them. The seas and the winds don't care much for our plans!

and trimming the genoa

I use QTVLM and historical GRIB data to look at how the passage would have gone in previous years.  In this case the simulation looks at what the passage would be like in 2010 leaving every two days from early June.  Note the doldrums in the middle of the passage.  I wrote more on passage planning here

The "Route Comparator" from the routings above.

I had some fun playing with Benjamin this morning. He admittedly spends a lot of time playing video games, but I am enjoying the way his imagination brings those games to life right here in our saloon. It is also fun to see how he meets his needs to move around even in our confined spaces! He will come to me dressed in his garb (long sleeves, long pants, gloves, hat, crocheted 'bandolier' and backpack), tell me that we need to fight monsters or enemies, and hand me a wooden stick, which is to be my weapon. This morning we were attacked by three different 'bosses' and we had to drink various potions (he had strength and I had invisibility) in order to prevail. Benjamin went out exploring and set off various land mines and explosives with great theatrics and sound effects. You can imagine that it is often very hard for me to leave my grownup world of chores and sailing, but when I manage it, we have great fun. I can tell that Benjamin is vividly living our experience, and it is fascinating to see how the video game features (collecting coins, respawning, bosses) show up in his play. As ever, when I get out of my own way and immerse myself in our shared experience, we create a lot of memories together :)

The quilt is getting bigger

While I was off-watch, Benjamin spent his afternoon in a somewhat more practical pursuit, baking a chocolate cake with Victoria. They will decorate it tomorrow in honour of Canada Day.

As for the next few days, from our barometric readings and the surface analyses, it seems that we might have passed the peak of the ridge and be making our way towards something resembling the winds to bring us to Alaska. I have a bit of the fear of 'careful what you ask for, you might just get it' but we are ready for this light wind period to come to an end, and we are definitely ready to be closing the gap to Dutch Harbor! We are approaching the half-way point on our 3,000 nm from Majuro with just over 1700 nm to go as of tonight. The sky was clear and a brilliant blue all day (decorated with some cumulus clouds that popped up in the afternoon and a massive squall that passed beside us just before sunset) and the sky is absolutely clear tonight. We have stars above us and bioluminescence beside us. I am reminded of the quote, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well" (Julian of Norwich, 1373). We just need to remember this.

Love to all,
Elizabeth
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At 2019-06-10 12:18 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 31°48.97'N 166°40.77'E

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