Author: Scott
The day started with a little wind at last; just be have our hopes dashed as the wind vanished at 13:00. The sun cooked us for yet another day of fun in the sun in the ITCZ. The doldrums are turning out to be everything we were promised and then some. Of course if we had use of our engine, we would rip across the ITCZ and find the southeast trades, but because we are in pursuit of the real deal and because we have no spare for our circulation pump, we are braving the doldrums like real sailors. We did break out the staysail today, this is a secondary headsail that is flown behind the main headsail and attaches midway up the mast. This sail will allow us to quickly change sail area for weather, and provides for greater sail area in times of fair wind. At the end of our sweat fest we were rewarded because today is bug shower day, and as the sun began to set we broke out the bug shower and had a chance to use our collected rain water. The water was clean and pure and soon we were squeaky clean.
Tonight’s dinner was a foray into the fine world of canned food cooking; we finally tried to make something with canned corned beef. Yankee Red Flannel Corned Beef Hash was the delicacy on the menu! Our dinner was comprised of canned new potatoes, canned beets, a dash of milk, and of course canned corned beef. I knew we might be in trouble as I opened the can of corned beef to reveal a congealed mass that looked like a cross between silicone gel, dog food, and grated brains. I held tough, handed the can back to the galley and hoped for the best. Pam grew up eating hash and said that hash can be delicious. My next job was to mash up the potatoes and beets and I got a kick out of the purple hew that dinner was taking on.
Pam said that she thought things were going well, until she added the milk. Apparently milk is not a normal ingredient in hash, but Pam being true to the recipe boldly moved forward. Pam cooked away but the substance refused to brown and stubbornly kept it’s baby food properties. There was just no frying this blob, and so we decided to release it from the pan, and give it a go. “If you don’t like it you don’t have to eat it, and we can always have ramen instead”, said Pam. You know how it is when you bite into something and think maybe it will get better, well this was not one of those times; I knew that the purple paste was not going to get any better. I cautiously asked Pam what she though of dinner and she said that it has the right taste but the wrong consistency, so I persevered through two thirds of my serving. At that point I whispered an apology to Nemo and sent the remainder of my dinner over the side, “Sorry old sport, but you got to take the bad with the good, maybe I will have some crackers and peanut butter for you tomorrow.” In the end Pam agreed that din-din really was not very good and so we made a pact to try to barter off our eleven remaining canes of corned beer in the South Pacific, it is supposedly a high demand item. Lobster for corned beer, could it be possible? From now on we will stick to canned chicken and tuna, even Spam will be welcomed with open arms.
Pam passed out a round of Tums and we settled down in the cockpit for a late “Chill Hour” and as we sat there discussing the hazardous hash dinner the clouds built and built until we had an ominous black beast hanging just off our port quarter. The clouds soon turned to squalls and we had heavy rains and winds from varying directions. We had to abandon the self steering vane and hand steer when the wind became too fluky to hold a course. The weather was intense but never really scary. We were just sent sailing off in many directions just to turn off and head in another direction. We tried to edge our way south, away from the ITCZ, but continued on in the chaos for hours. During our frenzied sail we were visited by a dolphin or whale, we could not see it but we could hear it making squeaks, and we could hear the telltale sound of their breathing. It was almost as if we were visited to let us know that there would be an end to this mess.
Around midnight we were engulfed in a particularly dense and nasty rain cloud. We sailed on through the blackness until all at once we were free and under an inky sky with a blazing moon. Just then I saw something that I have never seen before, the moon was so bright that it made two distinct rainbows across the cloudy sky. We both blurted out “look at that” at the same time. With so many things that we do not visually see on this trip, such as much of the varied sea life (I certainly have not caught any), it is magical when we get the opportunity to see such an amazing site as our moonlight rainbows. It is something I will never forget. As we were staring at the sky with monoculars in hand, another incredible thing happened, the wind hardened with zeal in the sails and the anemometer said we had a twelve knot breeze directly from the southeast, and we fell into a port tack. We had reached the southeast trade winds and the end of the ITCZ. What an exit!
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