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| Less than 1000nm to go. |
Greetings,
Our dinnertime dolphins came back again tonight :) Max was watching some of the bigger waves go by and three dolphins appeared out of one of them beside Fluenta. They played for a few minutes, then they were on their way. The dolphins we are seeing seem to be the Pacific White-Sided Dolphin, distinguishable by a pale triangle on their dorsal fin.
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| We never get tired of seeing dolphins. |
Our winds today have been in the 20 kt range, and the seas have been moderate but building. What this means is that we have no particular reason to complain (lots of people go through conditions which are much worse) but it is hard to cook or walk around downstairs: the boat is constantly rocking from side to side, with a bigger motion every few cycles as larger waves pass through, or the direction varies slightly. The contents of every cupboard sound like a percussion section warming up (regardless of how many tea towels I stuff in with the cups and pots). We always maintain a rule of 'one hand for the boat' but today it was especially important to brace and hang on. Of course, Benjamin loves to make a game of the boat's movements, so he would use the lurches to his advantage to cross the saloon and land on a cushion.
I spent some time thinking about perspective today: while downstairs in the galley or off-watch on the bunk, it is easy to make up a story, based on the boat's motion and the creaking and groaning of the wooden cabinetry, about how terrible conditions are up top, and yet when I go to the cockpit, it turns out that things are actually not that bad - the sun is out, the seas are manageable, and the boat is sailing just fine. It struck me that it wasn't just in sailing that we tell ourselves stories that turn out not to be true, and that it was important to check facts and assumptions when we get ourselves wound up.
Our miles to go counter ticked over to 999.9 at around lunch time, so we decided to celebrate with chips right away, on the off-chance that the conditions would build to the point that no one would feel like celebrating or eating chips later in the day. With 2/3 of our mileage covered, it was fun to ask everyone what their top three memories of the trip were - it was a bit surreal to reminisce about whales, calm seas, and reading on the foredeck while we had dark grey water surging and frothing around us. The sun came out for a while today, but the skies had filled into overcast by the evening.
I didn't feel much like cooking tonight, so it was nice to have a bottle of chicken and packet of 'Chicken Stew Spices' to throw together on top of a pot of rice. I have been using this trip as an excuse to use all the 'special occasion' foods that I bought along the way; when I checked the date on the spice packet, I figured that I had picked it up on NZ on our second trip there in 2016!
It is much more interesting to watch the miles to go counter now that we are past the 1,000 nm to go mark, as it is counting down in increments of 0.1 nm, which change so much more often than the miles! Our eastward jog has slowed our progress towards Dutch Harbour (VMG shows the component of our velocity towards our destination, and it hovers around 3 kts even when we are doing over 7 kts over ground) but this will improve again when we turn to head north. Our sea temperature, which had been dropping steadily has gone up again over the last couple of days; we are wondering if we are under the influence of some kind of warming current. We are expecting a cold front to move slowly over us tonight (with wind shift, cold air and rain), so we will check the forecast in the morning and hope to head north again tomorrow or the next day. We want to avoid this gale and its effects, but then we want to get going to Dutch Harbor so we are not too far east!
Love to all,
Elizabeh
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At 2019-07-01 2:12 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 41°13.00'N 176°34.00'W
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