Journal Entry – May 23, 2005 Pacific Puddle Jump Day 19 Just Another Day in the Doldrums

Author: Pam

Another day in the ITCZ brought clear skies, calm seas, little wind and a hot day. We are finding it more difficult to feel motivated without the relief of the wind combined with this heat. As the wind became very light and fluky in the middle of the day we took half hour shifts hand steering in the heat. Thank goodness for our portable MP3 player, music helped passed the time as we melted into a puddle. We kept this up for a couple of hours and then enlisted the help of the auto pilot for a very short amount of time due to the need to reserve power. Though the wind remained light, it was less fluky and the wind vane stepped back up to the plate and held our course. When we were not steering we respectively spent most of the day reading, which included finishing “The Long Way”, by Bernard Moitessier. It is an interesting account of how his participation in a race around the world solo turned out to be a personal quest for where he wanted to go next in his life and an inside look at what happened in and to his mind in the process of getting there. We do hope we don’t go off our rocker as he apparently did. The next book on our reading list of books we are reading together was a gift from our friends John and Joanne on Western Grace, “An Ocean to Cross” by Liz Fordred. It is a remarkable story about two young people who became paraplegic at eighteen and nineteen years old and by the time they were in their early twenties they had decided to build a boat and go sailing (they had no experience with either). Their mission was very similar to ours, to inspire people with disabilities and to set the bar for what can be done.

The Charlie Tuna line went over again today and came back with an empty lure again, well at least the lure was still there, Fish 8, Tournesol 0. It was too hot to get very fancy in the galley today, so dinner was clam chowder. This happens to be one of our favorite canned meals, so ok by us. Just as we were finishing dinner, the moon began to rise as a big yellow ball of light (the color of the sun), it was the most spectacular full moon we have ever seen. We felt like a spotlight was being shown on Tournesol and wished we had some way of taking a picture.