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Nexus - Sailing is like a box of chocolates



Adapting the line from Forrest Gump, you never know what you're going to get. Near midnight last night we had an extended lull in the wind and slowed considerably in the chop. Our cat has two long whiskers, the 21' antennae that rise vertically from the aft of the solar panel arch. We had encountered three large Japanese fishing vessels with no AIS earlier in the evening, so I was doing my usual horizon scan for traffic, when I noticed the top 8' of the SSB DSC antennae was wobbling in the wind and waves. It reminded me of that guy who used to spin plates on sticks on the Ed Sullivan show (sorry GenX'ers it's a Boomer reference!). Being on the extreme aft overhang of the arch, and higher than I could reach standing on my tip toes on the top of the arch, my first thought was "oh well, that's gone". Then I remembered it is basically a steel rod with fiberglass over it, and relatively heavy, so when it finished it's kabuki dance, it would probably just shoot straight down and smash our solar panels below. So after conjuring my inner McGuyver I tied a line to the end of our extendable boat hook, and then tied a loose slip knot around the base of the antenna. From the coach roof, I then gingerly slipped it up the antenna carefully passing over the ferrule where the last segment screwed on without touching it in the waves (remember the game "operation"?) so I wouldn't knock it off. Once around the lower quarter of the top section, I tightened the slip knot around the antenna and it just lifted off the base....it was completely unscrewed and balancing there! With it secured to the boat hook, I did a controlled fall to Lauries' waiting hands on the coach roof and we stowed it away for later reattachment. I guess 6800 miles of wobbling was enough to unscrew it!

Returning to watch this morning at 6am, I noticed the barber hauler on the gennaker sheet, had become a knotted monkey's fist around the snatch block, and it was bar tight bearing the full load of the gennaker sheet...that's for tomorrow's McGuyver.. for now it's smooth sailing and all is well.

Russ and Laurie on NEXUS at 9:28 7 55.'S;118 37.'W


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