2007-06-12

This afternoon Karen said "Now we're starting to have fun." That sort of
sums it up. The
nightmare seems to be over. It didn't end suddenly, though. All night we
sailed thru a
cold front, in and out of rain squalls packing 30 knots of wind, steep seas
up to 14 feet.
After the nights rest on the sea anchor and the repairs made we could deal
with it, but only
just. An example of fatigue based stupidity; I got up at dawn to find
Karen hand steering,
unable to leave the cockpit to get me up to help her. She couldn't get the
autopilot to
steer, couldn't reach the controls to add some headsail, which she was sure
was needed to
make it steer over the big sloppy seas in the slowly decreasing wind. I
reached over and
eased out 2 feet of sheet on the staysail, a five second maneuver right in
front of her, and
the helm went neutral. The autopilot was immediately happy. She was so
tired she had
forgotten the most basic rule, that sail trim controls the steering. Sort
of in the same
category as me yesterday, not thinking of the spinnaker halyard to replace
the broken one
for the staysail. Truth is, I don't know how she copes at all having to deal
with seasickness on top of the fatigue. Mostly stubbornness, I guess.
Anyway, the fresh one has to do the thinking. I'd had a 3 hour sleep, so I
took over, and she went to sleep for 5 hours. The wind settled at 18 knots
from the West, the sea smoothed, I added a little jib, and spent the morning
cleaning up the small mountain of wet clothes and towels from the dinette.
We'd used half of our towels keeping the water off the nav station and
computer shelf.
So when Karen got up, I took a good rest again, and
things eased up even more. This afternoon we slowly put things in order, as
we made a
steady 6 knots on the rhumb line to Fiji. No more water surging down the
decks. No more
drips from the hatches. No more slamming and crashing, and lurches that
send you across the
boat groping for a handhold. Just the hiss and gurgle of water past the
hull, warm sun
drying the rain that finally rinsed off the salt from the topsides, and all
the controls
basically working again. Had a couple of nice visits with friends on the
radio, and now
we're looking forward to an easy night coasting under a sky full of stars.
15 knots of
breeze just abaft the beam. This is more like it. Ted