Decisions decisions decisions

Last night for the first time in a long time, I had to put on some warm
clothes for my watch. The air was chilly and heavy with damp. My Oregon
Scientific Weather instrument is measuring humidity at 98%, and
everything inside and out is wet. The sea is like a mirror, reflection
the stars and as the day was breaking, a breathtaking scene unfolded.
The sun will soon be out to dry the surface of the boat, and it looks
like a warm day is ahead of us. I can't say wind is scarce, there is
just no wind. After studying our newest weather report and on advice of
our windguru, I decided to head more south, changing our heading by
about 30*'s. It adds another 100nm to our distance overall, but there
are some consistantly good winds further down, and that is what we are
now hunting for. Nearly overnight we have lost wind and current, and if
we carried on our course as we were, we would be in this state of near
limbo for a long long time. Such is sailing, the shortest route is not
always the fastest, and we are not gambling, no ways we can afford that.
Our speed have dropped about 30% and we don't have unlimited fuel on
board. There are three boats somewhere behind us, and we are in a race
of sorts, but we plan to stay ahead. I will get their positions in due
time, and it will be interesting to see how the different skippers rise
to the challenge.

Should we run out of fuel we will be in dire straights in the purest
sense of the term. Our boat batteries will run flat which will cause
great harm to them. No batteries, no instruments, no VHF,no navlights,
no satphone, no gas as our gas runs through an electronic solenoid. And
all this on the biggest ocean on the planet, with no land for thousands
of miles. But don't worry, we won't starve, we have plenty of baked
beans and other tinned food. And we can steer the boat by hand if we
have some wind, the autopilot is really a luxury. We also have
papercharts and a magnetic compass, so we should be able to find our
way.At night we have the stars to guide us, and the sun also rises in
the east and sets in the west, more or less. But this is a worst case
scenario, although things can get even worse, but I rather won't dwell
on that.So yes, these are testing times and trusting times in many
regards.

Last night we found our first squid on board, about 10cm long. Amazing
that these vreatures can propel themselves so fast that they can land on
board. When I sailed this ocean last, it was quite fun to walk around
the boat in the morning, collect all the squid, gut them and wash them,
add some garlic and butter and fry them in a pan. Delicious delicasies
from the deep. They sometimes hit the sail halfway up the mast, and
normally leave a purple like stain on the sails. Halfway up the mast is
about 12 mtrs, how they do it I don't know, but they certainly get up
there somehow.

We hope our decision to head more south will pay off handsomely, which
brings me to another term with nautical origins, 'Pay Off'. Literally to
pay the crew their wages at the end of a voyage. Since voyages often
lasted several years the amounts were comparatively large and this
coupled with the release from the long engagement plus the prospect of
leave gave the pay off a Christmas atmosphere. Ashore this innocence has
gone, the term still has a rewarding ring, a large sum of money, a
handsome return, but with curiously criminal undertones.

Well, I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday.

Captain Paul