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Sweet Dream - Tuesday January 21, 2010



We started the day with a morning squall. It came early; at 06:00 on the heels of the sickle moon that rose in the thin band of clear sky between the clouds and the horizon. After the lunar rise, while we were sailing on the faint light of the moon path the little storm scudded across the sky bringing darkness and rain. After the squall passed there was velvet black sky ahead in the west, and the jewel-like wonder of Jupiter chasing Antares up into the twilight of the east behind us. The sun came late to this day’s celestial parade, but made up for its tardiness by being bright and hot all day long. We set our clocks back to UTC, St Helena time and enjoyed the two extra hours of day, on this, hopefully our last full day at sea before landfall at Jamestown sometime tomorrow if our current pace holds. It was a brilliant blue sky, sunshine, summer is here to stay kind of day. The only missing element was the wind. To maintain enough speed to make landfall in daylight Wednesday, we had to supplement the sails with running the engine off and on. We left it off from 10:00-15:00, then Set the clocks back to 13:00. Captain climbed in the engine compartment and removed the alternator from the yanmar engine while I watched the helm with all sails “flying” along at four knots. I’ve been reading ’The Source’ by James Michener, and finally finished it today. What an epic story! It makes me wish the world was stable enough to sail the Red Sea...meanwhile in the Atlantic...with the alternator removed, we can run the genset to make water even if the engine is on for propulsion. Oh goodie! Not one but two noisy engines running together...diesel in stereo...sounds like a name of a rockabilly band! I’m very thankful though, for that crazy music, as it drives us across the waves to our destination. After eight day days of such fantastic wind at the outset of this passage, the light zephyrs of the past two days were disappointing and we are happy to have motors to supplement with. We heard on the radio net that even Lunatix was motor sailing! That let us know the wind IS light, because usually Freddie can coax his ultralight racing X-yacht to sail long after the rest of us resort to auxiliary power. After a wonderful afternoon I made a shepherd’s pie from yesterday’s lamb stew that was put on hold by the arrival of The FIsh. It was lovely to have extra time to play in the galley. The result was fantastic, puff pastry filled with lamb, potatoes, carrots, peas in a delicious gravy and topped with piped mashed potatoes. The whole shebang cooked on the stovetop in the omnia oven...the hot weather, short on cooking gas, sailor’s best galley mate. It’s a three piece aluminium pan . The bottom is an aluminium ring that sits on the hob or stove top or even bbq grill. The middle part holds the food. It looks for all the world like a Bundt pan, it sits on the ring, you place whatever you want to bake in it, then cover it with the third piece; an aluminium specially vented lid. This tidy contraption bakes in the same amount of time with 1/10 th of the gas usage and probably 1/4 f the resulting heat the big box oven would generate. True everything is ring shaped...but hey..I look at it as a real “ lifesaver “ for the galley wench! It is made in Sweden and I bought ours in Seattle 7 years ago and use it to bake everything. After our shepherd’s pie we had plenty of time for leisurely showers before starting our night watch routine at the new 19:00 utc time. I’m so grateful for the ability to run the genset and make water! I cannot imagine crossing oceans on a sailboat without being able to shower every day.
Well, here I write in the middle of my first night shift, and we just passed a 579 foot passenger ship coming out of St. Helena twelve miles off our starbrd beam. We are 80 miles from Jamestown, and this is the first boat I’ve seen in six days. I wonder idly if it is a cruise ship or a passenger ferry. Her name is San Marco. It is very reassuring to know that the AIS pickup works, and I can see the comforting glow of the ship’s lights way off on the horizon right where she is positioned on the chart. Ahh.. technology is so nice when it functions as it’s supposed to. It a really nice night on the Sweet Dream.

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