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Sweet Dream - Day 241 September 13, 2019



Another rosy dawn burst upon the eastern horizon just as the fat orange harvest moon slid off the edge of the west. It was a magnificent start to the best sailing day on this leg of the journey. We had usable wind for a nice wing on wing glide the better part if the morning. Then Fideleo showed up on our port quarter. They got closer and closer and since we had the sails out on both sides we were unable to turn to Starboard to have enough sea room between us. Lars and Clement had a vhf chat where they teased about getting close enough to shake hands. Eek! Anyway, we needed to make some progress to the north side of the rhumb line anyway, so we took the Genoa off the pole on the starboard side and just put it out without the pole on the port side with the main, rolled away the staysail and made a 30 degree turn to starbrd. This gave us .4 mile of sea room in the closest point of approach with Fideleo. After an hour they passed far enough ahead of us that we could turn back a little, so back on the pole went the Genoa and out went the Hoyt again. We carried on all afternoon in very pleasant sailing conditions. I went down at 15:30 for a little nap, and after 20 minutes Captain called to me to bring the camera and come up. There was some really weird, big thing bobbing in the water just off our port bow. It stuck up out of the water about five feet, was about three foot in diameter, and appeared to be wrapped and tied . It surely hadn’t been there very long because the lines wrapping it were clean and nice. In all our years on all the seas we’ve travelled, neither of us had ever seen anything like it. Oddly enough, Alora reported on the ssb net in the evening that they had seen something like it it too. At supper time Charm came by flying a gorgeous spinnaker. I had a nice chat with Lara on the vhf, she asked us what we were doing tonight, would we like to come over. Haha. I apologised that we were busy eating stir fry vegs and egg rolls, and wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. Too bad...they were having pizza and movie night in honour of Cobin’s birthday being almost here. Amazingly enough, as they passed us, they were only 115 feet off our bow! I kept asking Lars if we could please turn and get out of their way, and he refused to let me move our boat. Nerves of steel has the Viking skipper...nerves of steel! Not so the mate...I went below until Charm had cleared our bow, then popped up and looked at the closest point of approach on the AIS...115 feet! With them flying a big kite! Wow! It would be interesting to do a poll of the fleet and ask what is their idea of minimum distance for comfort. I’m guessing it is measured in inches for most of these racing inclined folk, whereas for me, I like a minimum of a quarter mile when under sail with other pleasure craft and one mile with anything commercial. That’s one way you can tell I am a cruiser, not a racer. In the words of Arthur Ransome, “nothing gladdens a sailor’s heart more than sea room.”


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