Monday, May 21, 2007

Journal Entry - May 20, 2007 - The Calm Before the ?

Author: Pam

I just started my first watch at 2100 and am sitting in the cockpit completely in awe of the moon and the night sky. I am sure there has been at least one other night out here as beautiful, but at the moment I cannot seem to recall it. The moon is fairly new and was out as the sun went down. Though it is new it has been incredibly bright all evening and furthermore is accompanied by another smaller bright star or planet just to the left. It feels like a significant combination and I am sure the astronomers out there could give an explanation. The tandem galactic spectacle has been shining brightly over a sea made of glass. Their reflections look like ribbons that are being held by one end and snapped so they ripple across the water. As I write this entry the moon and its' friend are quickly setting.

We have had absolutely no wind since 1800 last night and have now been motoring for 27 hours, a new all time record. We have finally had a current in our favor this afternoon, running 2.6 knots at the moment. If you are not going to have any wind, it is at least nice to have a current to ride. Today the sky was blue; it was in the 70's (my kind of winter) and calm enough to boil water for pasta without gimbling the stove. There is a low-pressure system forecasted for sometime tomorrow and by the calmness of the water, it has that feeling something could be lurking. It is supposed to be weaker than the one the day before yesterday, so maybe we won't have quite the E-ticket ride, if you don't mind Mr. Toad.

Last night we both slept like the dead for our respective five hours. Scott was so refreshed and a bit hyper after his night's sleep he had the fishing pole out at dawn and actually kept it out until dusk. I suppose you guessed already though, the score is now fish 2, Starship 0. It seems the fish in the Tasman Sea are as elusive as in the Pacific.We were busy all day with boat chores. There was the backed up head, I won't go into details on that one. We went out for an on deck check and found several small issues to attend to. We raised the Australian courtesy flag and the Q flag since the conditions were calm. We are actually a bit early on both, technically you don't fly the courtesy flag until you are in the waters of the country and the Q flag, which is a plain bright yellow flag is flown until you are cleared by the quarantine officials when you arrive in a port. One of the support poles for the wind generator had lost a bolt, which Scott was able to replace. The line used to hold the wind vane paddle out of the water was trailing in the water, yikes not another line in the water. We retrieved it with the boat hook, phew. The dinghy cover had come off in the front and it needed draining from all of the rain and waves. We didn't find any stray sea life or flying fish, though there was a fairly good sized one the other day on the catwalk. It just occurred to me as I sit here with the light of my computer by the opening in the cockpit, I am a flying fish magnet (they and squid are attracted to light). So, with that said it is a good time to end this journal entry and the moon is almost gone. Goodnight Mr. Moon.

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