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Arkouda - Day 5 --Motorboat Motorboat...




3:00 AM on Friday Morning

This is absolutely the blackest night I have ever spent on the ocean, or anywhere for that matter.  There is absolutely no delineation of the horizon, no stars, no moon.  Besides our navigation lights the only thing I can see is an occasional splash of a white wave as Arkouda disturbs the water as she passes through.  It is a little eerie, and leaves me with a rather vague sense of loss.  It's not so much that without our compass I would not be able tell our direction, i(which is absolutely true!) ts more of a feeling that the world is somehow muted, cloaked in cotton.  Its a bit like being in a heavy snowstorm without wind-- you are unable to tell your direction and everything is hushed.  I can still hear the swish of water as it passes by, but the motor has now become just background noise, something you know is there but are not really aware of--just a continuous hum.  We saw our last boat over 24 hours ago, and he only showed on our AIS, passing 14 miles across our stern.

The only other sound is a very occasional creak or groan from the rudder, only this time the port. (Left Side)  Since we just replaced the bearings on both sides, and reinforced the fiberglass to dampen any vibration, I can only suspect that it is a bit of prop cavitation.  We never hear the groans when sailing, and our autopilot is very quiet.  Since our autopilot is electric (our steering if using the wheel is hydraulic-- its nice that we have two systems in case one fails) I will beg Sean to take a look in the morning to confirm that all is okay.  

We have had a very quiet day here on Arkouda.  The wind is so light we dropped our genny (foresail) and only have the mainsail up.  We started the motors around 10. am.  The direction is from the south, and we are headed roughly toward the Cape Verde islands.  There is a large weather system to the north that is disturbing the regular trade wind flow, and rather than fight it we may wait there for it to re-establish itself.  These are the winds that helped Columbus to the Americas, and are called the trade winds because it was so essential for trade between Europe and the colonies.

The light winds and flat seas made it easy to prepare our Thanksgiving meal -- Turkey Breast, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce with walnuts.  We of course ended up with way too much food, and Sean kindly vacuumed sealed it for me.  Yes, you can make pumpkin pie in a square dish.  No, digestive crackers are not the same texture as graham crackers, and now on my bucket list is to learn how to make a pie crust.  My mother's is the best, but the "just add until it looks like this" instructions she gave me somehow was lost in translation!  Too much science background I guess, I make bread by weighing out the flour and yeast, and even measure the temperature of the water and ambient air.  And yes, I record it.  Too much chemistry?

We called home today, and my mother in law asked a really good question!  And she has never sailed in her life, but she is very intuitive.  She wanted to know how  I keep watch, and write on the logs.  Let me explain, so that you don't think that I am lax in following the watch schedule.  One of my biggest fears when we started sailing was to wake up and be alone on the boat.  I know this is morbid, but as all sailors know, a possibility.  We wear our lifejackets and harnesses at night, and no one is allowed out of the cockpit without informing the other.  We also have a "watch commander".  It's a timer that plugs into the 12 volt.  We keep it inside in the Nav station, I spend my watches outside.  When the timer beeps, you have to go in and touch the button, if you don't it sets off an alarm that would raise the entire Atlantic fleet!  

I set this alarm for 10 minutes.  A boat in the horizon in fair weather is something over 15 minutes (According to my calculations, closer to 30 minutes, except for the high speed ferries)  When the alarm sounds I go turn it off, hit the button to start the radar scanner, and while it is warming up go to the helm.  I do at least two complete scans, confirm our course overground, apparent wind, and true wind, check for AIS signals, then out of the helm to the transoms to scan the port and starboard side. I go back inside, check the radar, rehit the button and spend next 10 minutes in the helm.  My night vision is fully recovered, I have confirmed that we are not going to be run down, and hit the button.  I now have about 10 minutes to check weather, write in the blog, contemplate life.. do the dishes--although they aren't always as clean as I thought they were under the red light--anything to stay active and awake.  I have found that when I just stay in the helm station that I become complacent.

We are working out our watch schedule now that we are just two.  At first we started with 3 hours on, 3 hours off, which was okay for me, but Sean does better with longer, uninterrupted sleep.  The last few nights we tried Sean on from 8-12, me 12 - 6, Sean 6 till 8 or 9, or when I wake up.  This seems to work well, and I think we will adjust well.  I feel bad that he ends up with two shifts, and he feels bad that I have the graveyard watch.  Tonight I was in bed by 7:00. Sean was able to nap during the day (typical turkey reaction?)   We just found that with 3 or 4 hour shifts our decision making was slow, and recall was off.  (I have no idea how things can be misplaced on a small boat, but it happens.  I spent hours looking for a muffin pan.  The darn thing had been in the way for days, so we must have stashed it somewhere...)

All is well.  We are contemplating withdrawing from the race side of things to let the winds re-establish--As the song goes "we may never pass this way again" and I have heard the Verdes are not to be missed!  

Cynthia


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