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Raritan - Raritan – 12/10/18 – Day 16 – Managing the vagaries of tropical weather



It’s been over two weeks now and I think I can safely say that we’re all looking forward to being back on shore soon. As Doug noted above, conversation has turned to topics like, “Won’t it be nice to be able to eat dinner without having your food slide off your plate or your plate slide off the table?” Or, “What sort of food are you looking forward to most?” French fries are near the top of the communal list.

It will also be nice to be able to take a shower or walk around without constantly rocking and rolling and trying to keep your balance. We all definitely have varsity-level sea legs now and re-acclimation to terra firma might be interesting.

As I write this (1430 on day 17), we have 163 miles to go, which has only increased our anticipation. Our arrival looks to be on Wednesday afternoon/evening, if the wind holds and all goes well. Fingers crossed.
Day 16 was an interesting one highlighted by several run-ins with tropical squalls that have kept life interesting. Overnight we encountered a couple with winds over 25 knots and had to shorten sail promptly to keep Raritan on her feet. Thankfully we’ve gotten pretty good at it.

We had a great view of Venus before sunrise—it was almost as bright as the moon. Shortly after dawn we got a bigger squall with puffs up to 30 knots and ended up sailing under main only at a true wind angle of about 160°, which generated some very close-call near gybes with waves that were routinely pushing the bow down 10-20° at a time. We quickly got the second reef in and got things under control. Then we gybed to port, which gave us a good angle to aim nearly directly for St. Lucia for the first time. The wind held strong for the rest of the day with gusts to 30 knots in a couple of the squalls.

We also had another first sighting yesterday afternoon—our first rainbow. In between a couple of squalls in the afternoon, we briefly had a fully arced rainbow astern. It was beautiful.

We (some of us at least) are also thirsting for some news of the wider world. We are aware that George H. W. Bush (41) passed away, and that the stock market has essentially held even, but we’ve heard little else. In 2018, that is a bit of a strange sensation. I, for one, am definitely not looking forward to the deluge of email once I turn my phone back on.

Despite a couple of days of towing a fishing lure, we haven’t caught any more fish since our Dorado several days ago. Looks like chicken for dinner again tonight... We have also officially run out of fresh vegetables except for a few potatoes and celery stalks, which at least one of the crew is not so unhappy about…

Rob




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