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Libeccio - Blog: Weds Dec 10th



Today:  Slalom in Squall Valley; meet TGPYLTF’s sister;  inspired by the Pogues;  Water Water Everywhere..;
 
Greetings fair readers, we hope that you are riding the euphoria of the arrival of “hump” day - Wednesday—the day in the week that signals the coming weekend is closer than the one just passed... I wonder who really thinks that way. In any event, we hope it was a good one for you.
 
It seems the most common way for you to read this blog is over your morning cuppa, so grab your coffee, tea (for Lorraine it has to be from Serious Coffee, go on, have the blue berry muffin as well) and then we can start. This Blog is a little later than usual as it was written on the 04:00 –07:00 watch, but, it also means that the author had to tidy up after dinner (another master class of one pot wonders by Bill) and with it having been pretty busy the night before, the crew opted to get to bed a bit earlier than usual.
 
In any event, here goes...
 
So, speaking of busy nights (this would be Tuesday), it had been another lovely day with consistent winds, there were a few clouds making their way but nothing major, we had avoided the rain that had been forecast for our region and so as we headed into the night, we were pretty relaxed. That is until you know who (the one with Hyper-Squall-itis) taps on the door at stupid o’clock, because he was on the stupid o’clock shift) and says “Bravest Captain, we are being beset by vigilante Squalls that threaten our very existence”... or maybe it was just “Hey, come take a look at these clouds”. In any event, upon arrival at the helm, it was clear that the weather gods had decided to punish Mike again—for what we are not sure- -but, for the next 90 mins we made Lindsay Vaughn (American ski team, not sure if i spelt it correctly) going down the slalom in Squall Valley (pretty clever changing the name of the ski hill too) look like a beginner. We made more moves than Travolta in Saturday Night Fever; I could go on, but, get the picture? What is challenging with these clouds is that they are not all fully formed when they start their approach and so what looks like an OK, slightly darkish cloud when it is a couple miles away all of a sudden, say half a mile away, becomes rather less OK. So part of our process is guessing which cloud will next be of concern and from what direction. Well, dear reader you would think that the cloud will come from the direction of the wind—really quite simple. Not so, oh future meteorologists—depending upon something that we haven’t figured out, each cloud can take its own deviation from the main direction of the wind. So here are a couple terms that, if you throw them into your conversations with friends will make them think you are a true sailor... Backing and Veering. Sounds like a drivers licence test doesn’t it.  So, if the wind veers, it means that it changing in a counter clockwise direction and if the wind backs it is, ok you should figure this out—changing in a clock wise direction.  So, if you are sitting at the helm of Libeccio and one of these clouds is coming towards, you (at this point we are all doing the Jaws theme song in our heads... you can too.. da dunt, da dunt..etc) try to guess if it is going to veer or back. We must have guessed OK, as we were able to avoid being in front of one of these clouds and only had the slightest of sprinkles of rain.  Once the path was clear, it was back to bed for couple hours as my watch follows Mikes—guess how many squalls I had to dodge in my shift... none. We are thinking of sending for the Search and Rescue helicopter to get Mike to safety.
 
We seemed to have a bad day with the gods on Weds- you will recall that earlier on in the trip we were visited by the lesser known God of Pushing Your Luck Too Far? Well, he has a sister goddess that punishes you if you extrapolate past performance as an indicator of the future called, you guessed it The God of Extrapolating Your Past Performance As An Indicator of The Future- why couldn’t their parents named them something a little more easy to say? Ok ,so get the point you all are saying (why? I am on a 3 hour watch with nothing better to do!).. well, we had had a few days of pretty good performance- if we do say ourselves. For the past three days we had been in the top 10 fastest boats (excluding the racing class) and had moved up through the fleet by 30 places. Even Lewis Hamilton (British formula one driver) would have been impressed with our performance. We were averaging 7 – 8 knots without breaking a sweat... and so we made the fatal mistake of starting to estimate our arrival. No sooner had we said, “if we average 6 knots...” then the wind fell from an average of 15 kn to an average of 10kn.. and with it our speed also dropped to an average of less than 5. No biggie you say—well spread over the next few days, it would mean losing 3/4 of a day.
 
The drop in wind did, however, give us the most relaxing day we have had so far. I know, you have been a bit worried about the frenetic pace that we are living at and were concerned  that we might be suffering from exhaustion, stress and malnutrition. With the wind dropping, we also had virtually no clouds (didn’t stop Mike from constantly scanning the horizon) and the waves flattened. Izzy stayed with us, but, you could tell she was looking for more wind. So, we actually started to read some books- at times it was like a library... only the sound of the waves and Izzy fluttering from time to time. Almost on cue, the humidity dropped from its normal 80% to mid 60%’s and the temperature was a pleasant 26 C. It might have been that each of the crew had a wee snooze as well, but, some claim they were reading (ya, right).  This lasted right through to dinner (did I mention Bill cooked?) and it was only until we had put away the dishes and everyone was ready to settle down to their prewatch sleeps that the wind gently picked up to the range we prefer which is 13 – 18kn—a little precise we know.
 
Over night we will have broken the 500 nm barrier which inspired the reference to the Pogues (i hope it is spelt correctly)—this may be an easy one for you, but, today’s question is Why? Then if you know, you can picture us re-enacting the song and singing the only bit that we would remember..
 
We recently were asked about our water situation- its fine dear, we take pills for it...no not retention, but, consumption.  Ah, got it. On the boat we have a water maker- it basically takes in salt water, uses a couple filters to take out the bigger bits in the water and then uses high pressure to push the water through a membrane. The holes in the membrane are so small that only water can get through and no hangers on like salt can squeeze through at the same time.  If you recall high school science, then this process is called reverse osmosis. In any event, we have two water tanks totalling 700 liters. With the expected consumption per person of 2 liters per day, this should give us about 85 days.. plenty for the ARC which at worst should be no more that 30 days. So we have enough in each individual water tank to see us through the trip and so we always maintain at least one full tank just in case the water maker decides to take a holiday. Luckily, it hasn’t and so we can replenish our water and have enjoyed daily showers and been able to run the washing machine. Makes for a nice smelling boat.
 
Talking about a nice smelling boat, (using a boxing announcer’s voice) in tonight’s Culinary Corner is Bill, the Bronx Bomber...  undefeated champion of the one-pot wonders cook book and a great guy to follow up on clean up as he only uses one pot...well, except for tonight. He wowed the crew with his Chicken Divine which was, you got it, Divine- a chicken breast, baked with a topping of mushrooms, carrots, peas and mushroom soup along with a rice pilaf. Owing to some dietary restrictions, he also did the same but with out the mushroom soup, isn’t he thoughtful?
 
So that was Weds, frankly, we need a rest and so off to bed we went until our respective watches.
 
Hope you are all well, take care
 
 
The crew of Libeccio


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