Wild Goose - Come one wind... Go South
Right now the wind is out of the South Southeast, forcing us to either navigate in a NE direction or South, so we are tacking to try to make some way to where we want to go. "Outer Limits" is a few miles ahead of us to our NE, and we have talked with them on the VHF radio. The fishing competition between Lisa and Marta on Outer Limits continues, but we don't believe anyone has caught a fish yet, despite their claim to have had a fresh catch dinner last night. I think we'll have to see pictures to buy that one. Lisa says she has never gone this many days without catching something.
It is really pretty today and the sailing is great, even with the unfavorable direction of the wind. We are having fun talking about it and strategizing, but as I write this the crew is deciding to go back to the Port tack we have been on for the whole trip. So we may go South of Bermuda and have to come North if the wind doesn't shift for us. Who cares really, we are having a great time out in the blue water.
We just finished a game of "Botticelli," apparently a renaissance painter and sculpter. Anyway, in the game one person has a name of a public figure in mind and the others can ask yes or no questions until they guess the name of the person. Lisa taught it to us and said the game is sometimes called "dead white guys," but some of our public figures in our game included Jackie Robinson and Richard Pryor, so for us "Boticelli" was a more accurate name. Others in our game were Henny Youngman, Will Rogers, Robert Byrd, Lisa Goodwin (obviously not dead), and Elizabeth Taylor. It was fun and it was a great scene in the cockpit.
I am finding Iridium Satellite uploads for pictures to take ridiculously long ($$$$) to upload, even with a much reduced file size. So the on I am attaching now of Linda and Mike is even smaller in file size and may not look too good. We are still tring to make sense the upload process.
The only complaint we have now about equipment is our new Raymarine e7 chartplotter. The touch screen has stopped working and the toggle switch gets stuck making it very difficult to operate. We will be calling Raymarine Tech support when we get to Bermuda. Raymarine is usually a very responsive company. This e7 is brand new tecnology, and I think there are some problems, particularly with the toggle getting stuck.
We are back on the Port Tack now, so we are heading at about 150 degrees.
Mike had the day off of watch yesterday after his brilliant repair of our fuel leak. That was a big deal. To be less than 1/2 of the way to Bermuda and not have a working engine was going to be a bit of a hassle. We have had plenty of wind so far, but you never know when it might die out and the engine becomes important. So Mike is still a hero, but he is back on the watch schedule today. Mike is a longtime Schooner Captain and has had great input on our sail strategy. He is a fountain of knowledge.
So it's back to the cockpit now to enjoy the 15 knot winds and the sunny skies. Wild Goose sails on.
By: Hugh Moore
IMG_0483 web
Previous
|
Next