Raritan - Raritan 12/8/18 Day 14 – A day of chores

Morning broke on the day marking our second week on the water, and we were of two minds: on the one hand, we were making good progress and the end was in sight; on the other, we’d lost our most powerful sail. The wind was beautiful, but the swell was still irksome.

We set about some housekeeping in the morning before shifting into a bigger gear. Ian climbed up into the end of the boom to repair a fraying second reef line. We’d worn completely through the cover and it would snap if not repaired.

After a jibe, we set the spinnaker and marched west. The increased sail power reduced the effect of the swell and everyone’s mood improved. Unfortunately, early in the afternoon, we discovered with a binocular inspection that we’d chafed through the spinnaker halyard at the top of the mast. We had to bring down the chute.

We had a fantastic evening listening to favorite tunes as the sun set beautifully and Ian set about whipping a new end to the spinnaker halyard. Unfortunately, our karma was upset when a 1.5 mb email snuck through the service provider’s filter and gummed up our satellite email process. If we could not fix it, we’d have no weather service, no emails and no blog updates. A quick call home to Teresa found that the satellite service only operates M-F, so we’d be out for a couple of days at least. You’ll hear more from us if we can get it fixed.

Matt