1st May... day 19 - 36:05.200N 45:49.685W
Voyage of Wanderingstar
Ben Bonnick
Tue 1 May 2018 18:07
I’m in an area of little wind, but I have some which is enough to keep me moving at about 3.5 knots, I’ve been out there tweaking and I’m convinced I can get another half a knot out of her but I’ve left her for the moment as sometimes she responds better if I let her do her own thing. I'm watching the speed as I’m writing this and it’s sending me crazy…..Tomorrow I should have some stronger winds from my current 9-12 knots to 22-26 knots so I should be flying along.
The weather has certainly cooled but still very pleasant mid 70s. The temperature in cabin right now is 75 degrees, back in Antigua at this time in the morning it was reading 92. The strange thing is with the cooling of the weather it feels like I’m heading into Autumn.
I’ve been seeing lots of Portuguese Man-O-war jell fish which are amazing creatures, they have little sails on their backs and literally sail across the ocean, I’ve seen hundreds of them about 8 - 12 inches long.
Yesterday I was cursing myself, in fact I was so fed up with myself that I didn’t speak to myself for the rest of the day and I’m only now just on speaking terms, well grunting terms. I was stupid enough to let one of the reefing lines pull itself free from the boom and I only have two. It’s not really a problem, it just means each time I reef I need to re-set the remaining line, but it just reminded me to be careful and think through everything that I do. One silly mistake, a warp getting caught in the prop, a miss calculation, a moments lapse can have major consequences, not necessarily life threatening, but upsetting the delicate balance I live in between machine, man and nature. There is no room for complacency and if it reminds me of that, then the mistake was worth it.
All for now
Ben