35 45N 47 40W
Pipedream
Wed 17 Jun 2009 11:02
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Day 7, Winds have dropped somewhat yesterday
we made 140 miles at about 5.5 Kts. Today our speed has dropped to around
4 KTS. Everyone is pretty much settled into to the routine now. The
motion of the boat has moderated to a point where everyone is either reading or
working on fixing something. It has taken considerable adjustment for me
from the frantic pace getting ready for this to now where there are many
hours spent enjoying the water front view. I am gradually slowing
down but there is always something to fix. George is reading a paperback a
day. Matt has gone through just about all our sailing books and is now
studying fishing. Chris, I think, having the hardest transition. He
has however discovered that there is a 7000 foot volcanic peak in the Azores and
is recruiting everyone to climb it with him. I don't know if he realizes
he may have to carry a few of us down if we go!
Had my birthday celebration yesterday. George
cooked a special ham dinner, desert of pineapple, followed by several rum
toasts. Made sure everyone was harnessed in the cockpit. Really
splurged and talked to Mary and my mother on the Sat phone. Good to here
their voices and to know all is well back a the ranch. I have tried to get
some news on Voice of America. It has been almost 4 weeks now with no real
news. I finally got VOA on the short wave but it was a program about how
to train your aggressive pet.
Last night the stars were particularly
spectacular. Talk about dark... you could see the milky way across
the whole sky. For the non-star gazers in the audience the Milky Way is
actually the edge of our galaxy. It looks like a cloud until you use
binoculars or a telescope then you see that it is actually millions of stars
that just look like a cloud. We have been going pretty much east. My
watch is from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM. At about 11:30 Venus pops above the
horizon a little off the starboard bow. Now that I know what to expect it
doesn't look exactly like a big ships lights. Then at about 12:30 the moon
rises right in front of the boat. Pretty cool... The other night
Chris and I saw either a meteor or a piece of space junk hit the atmosphere and
burn up. Very bright and looked almost like a dud sky rocket. Lasted
for almost 30 seconds. We have also spotted a number of satellites and the
space station. It is sometimes a pretty eire feeling doing 6 KTS
in absolute dark. You can only see waves in the glow of
your running lights for a split second before they over take you and you hope
the other guy has his lights on, although we haven't seen another boat in a
couple of days.
Those small swallow / bat like birds fly at night,
where else are the going to go? We had the Beatles blasting away on the
stereo last night and at least one came so close to the back of the boat you
could hear it make a high pitch call. Probably wanted to sing along.
A lot of phosphoresance in the water. I expected the water to just glow,
instead we are getting something that looks like Christmas twinkle lights in the
wake. Round distinct points of light.
Today's project will be trying to get the radar
going again. I used a plug connector to get the wires that run down the
mast through the steel deck. The salt water has tuned the connector to goo
and last night we lost the signal. I think a new cable may be in our
future. All for now - stay tuned. |