45:40.117N 11:13.725W

SV Eleonora
Michael A. Andronov
Wed 11 Jul 2018 11:30
UTC & local time -- 1041
 
The miles gone -- 3553.7...   The 'fake' distance to destination -- 357 nm...
 
The irony of beating against the wind -- you have all signs of action -- healing, sound of the wind in all parts of rigging,   bouncing in the swell, against which you are going...  Spilled coffee, soup, whatever on the stove... Flfying objects of all kind inside the cabin... ( After a day or two -- you started to pick up something  from the 'neatly stoved' stuff'.. and then put it back...  and then... they are usually not so 'neatly stoved' -- and then the boat heels... No complains, actually... On space station -- I heard -- it is even worse... )....
 
You are beating... and in addition to all sighs of action -- you see a good speed... you see progress on the chart plotter... But... not exactly in the direction of destination desired... And more speed you get, more signs of action, more apperent wind, and... further away  from the course to destination...
 
And then you got the 'bottom line of the tack' -- you are progressing to you destination desired with the rediculously low speed... 
 
And there is only one way to deal with that, if I have gotten it right,  -- accept it.  Accept it to the degree as we are accepting the fact,  that the tennis ball will fall down to the ground,  either we just drop it, or kick it pretty well in any direction... 
 
And as you accepted -- keep trimming the sails,  clean the spilled coffee,  stove loose object... Keep reading,  keep writing -- even if sitting with computer reminds the reports from the space station...  Keep doing your regular stuff...   Because the alternavie --  much aglier... ;-) 
 
And -- probably most important -- keep going to the desired destination !  Because if you  stop doing that, and change your course just because of the challenges of beating -- you are making the first step to become one of those  ' Gosts of the High Seas"...
 
The weather. 
It is really changed to something 'typical in Montreal'...  The fact that I got accustomed to sail  in much warmer conditions -- is my challenge,  not the weather itself.  I found it isteresting how the human being reacts to the temperature.   I read a lot about it when I was lucky to work for air conditioning company...
But now I'm experiencing it on myself...
 
Being dressed in jeans, sweeter... wearing the life jacket and harness nearly 24 hours around -- especially at night, because you do not know when you would need to go out in pitch dark cockpit...  putting boots, when you have time...
 
The temperature is in about  20 degree C...   It is a magic number - when your body is already cooling a bit down nearly constantly... and, at the same time, the internal 'mechanisms' to protect itself from cooling -- is not 'switched on' yet...
 
Probably that explains my rapid increase in fatigue... and  attitude...   Well, another area to explore! ;-)
 
If it were the victim of that,  it would have been the Sat phone and the communication programs! ;-)
Those  -- reallry getting on my nerves...   In nut shell -- it seems I can talk reliably to the blog,  not anything else...
 And each connections  -- a couple of line drops... which means reconnectind, etc, etc....
But nothing I can do for now,  keep going! ;-)
 
A new day ahead,  another coffee,  and pushing the boat up, up, up... I mean North!
 
Talk later,
M.