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Sweet Dream - Saturday November 9, 2019



Wing on wing with the staysail in the middle, we are flying through the dark at 04:00 when I come up with my mug of black tea and bowl of plain yogurt. It’s an interesting watch because of so much shipping traffic. No fish boats today, but extremely large cargo ships and tankers which measure their length in tenths of nautical miles ply this route. With sorrow I finish “The Long Way”. Bernard was truly an odd duck, but he had a lot of beautiful things to say, and I really enjoyed his insights on the ocean and life. Captain came up at 07:00. It’s sail change time again! Coffee first, and yogurt and granola for him, then we furl the Genoa, take down the pole, put the Genoa back out without the pole, and shake out our night time reefs in the main. I went down at 08:30 for a wee nap, but heard the wind howling and couldn’t sleep....ah...that rainbow ring around the moon last night WAS indicative of a blow coming! Just when I think I’ll get up and say something about shortening sail the sweet music of winches begins, Captain is putting reefs in both sails. At 09:00 we have 25 knots of wind on the starbrd nose 30 degrees.! We have to fall off to keep moving forward. The current is barrelling away to the southwest, pushing us off our line even more. We put the Genoa away and motor sail with the main back towards our rhumb line, while I cook a sweet onion, add it to scrambled eggs and put this concoction into two tortillas with cheese, and salsa. Voila’ breakfast burritos. We finish our coffee that has been waiting for us through all the sail changes. We forego the daily laundry routine, as the drying area is awash with constant spray and the sky is low and threatening today. Captain takes an early nap, then I do likewise. When I awake at 14:00, we are motoring hard into four meter seas and the wind has crept back around to the other side of our nose to the west southwest. I go below and make a two cheese and tomato basil cracker snack. The wind is now 25 knots 60 degrees off port bow. This is too good a wind to waste! We put down the snack and heave-to. This lovely old school trick calms everything down. Since this is just to get the boat settled long enough to swap all the gear over, we don’t do it exactly....engine off, just four feet of main out, almost midline, rather tight, and no backwinded headsail. We tighten the wheel 3/4 of the way to windward, and Sweet Dream floats like a seagull with folded wings about 75 degrees off the wind. It is enough to create a sideways slide at .4 knots...not perfect, but good enough to make a big slick that dampens the waves, sprays, and roll, so we can work together to move the main preventer line from port to starboard, reroute the Genoa lines through the cars, and get everything in order for sailing in rough water on the opposite tack. We timed it...the whole process was only ten minutes until we were snug back in the cockpit and bashing merrily away at 6.8 knots double reefed in the 25 knot blow, IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION! Yehaaaa! Sweet Dream is galloping across the huge, short, seas like a half broke two-year old filly with the bit in her teeth, and I laugh and just hang on. This is truly sporty sailing! It’s also very wet sailing; the leeward deck is awash! SSB is a long time chat tonight. Everybody’s talking ‘bout the weather. This 25 knot blow wasn’t forecasted anywhere. Finally we get to eat our simple supper of potato salad that I put together yesterday and a quick funfood I found in the freezer section at Reunion’s Jumbo store; veggie bites. These things heated nicely in the stove top oven, and we ate them dipped in sweet chilli sauce, laughing about the label that said, ”shortcut to happiness”. Well, everybody needs a little shortcut to happiness from time to time, and this was the perfect time for ours. Being able to laugh and have fun in this crazy galloping sail is a good thing!


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