To be or not to be

Shakespeare coined the term to be or not to be. I would like to complicate
it a bit. To be AND not to be. At first I think it is complicated, and
after giving it some thought, I now think it is much less complicated than
William's original phrase. We have come a long long way in the last 400
years or however many years ago the Bard scribbled these words with quill
and ink. The Dark Ages are long gone, yet the Light is only now starting
to dawn upon us. Let me try an extreme example. You are either dead or
alive. Really ??? Do you really think your body is "dead" once you stop
breathing and your heart stops beating ? Not true at all. Your body now
starts decomposing, bacteria and maggots and all types of weird and
wonderful creatures and processes takes over. Life feeding on life and
soon your body will be part of the soil again. Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust. And so the circle of life continues. And part of your body becomes
part of something else again. When my belated wife passed away in '99 I
was devastated. In a desperate attempt to keep some part of her alive I
asked the doctor if any of her organs can be transplanted. Cause of death
eventually was kidney failure and all her organs were affected the doctor
informed me. Her body was cremated. I left some ashes here and there,
special places we've been together on land. The rest of her ashes I carried
with me for two years. And wherever I sailed all around the world, there
would be quiet moments for me when I felt her presence and would sprinkle
some of her ashes. I never told any of my crew on these trips what I was
doing, it was a purely private affair, something I did because it felt
right. There is no sadness left anymore. I got married again about two
years later, and the love of my life, my daughter Maryna, was born. So yes,
life and death, and the circle of life. I know the score. One and the same
thing. To be AND not to be. That is purely the physical aspect of things.
On the physical level, there is simply a transformation of matter, of
energy. Your breath becomes part of the breeze again, and your body gets
absorbed back into the next cycle of life. We often use the expression that
we throw things away. Like your refuse. You throw it away. I have taught my
daughter that there is no place like that. There is no away. Somewhere,
whatever you have thrown "away", there it still is. If it is organic it
will transform, if it is not it will pollute. Plastic bags takes how many
years to break down ? A thousand or more ? I don't know. Google it. I am
simply trying to say that death is not the end, it is actually the
beginning. Of life. A leaf that falls off a tree does not die, it simply
transforms to feed life again. Old sailors never die, they just rust away
:)

Ok, so you may think I am slightly cooked. Been in the sun too long. Been
without wind in the sails too long. Been sailing the oceans for too long.
You may be right, and you may be wrong. To be and not to be :) Let me check
our logbook quick to see how long we have been without wind. 13 days, with
an average 7kts of light breezes. Makes me think of a song by JJ Cale, who
passed on recently at 74 if I remember correctly. Song's name " They call
me the breeze ". If you like a bit of blues, and like original artists,
youtube this song. Real laid back. We, on the other side, are not so laid
back. We have been running our motors for as many days, flying our gennekar
for as many days. And by days I mean nights as well. Every now and then we
get a spell of 12 or 13 kts, switch off the motor and sail a while. Hoping
that this is the day we start clawing our way back to our required average
to make our deadline in San Francisco. But alas, soon the breeze dies down
again. We are smack bang where the tradewinds should be blowing a
consistent 15 to 20 kts. Which would cause a bit of swell to build, which
would cause us to gain some momentum. Fortunately we have enough diesel to
keep on motoring and stay in contention to catch up again.

We tried the mainsail and genoa when the wind turns from ESE to ENE placing
us on a broad reach hoping to generate some wind and speed but to no avail.
We were hoping we could move our apparent wind angle closer to our beam. We
were doing a knot or so slower. Our sail area on the main and genoa is about
115 m2, the gennekar is about 130 m2, and on a broadreach the wind pushes
you. We did that little exercise on Sunday. Jokingly we rest six days a week
and on the 7th day we work :) In reality we work 24/7, always ready to trim
the sail, or tweek it a bit to use another term, to make the most of slight
changes in wind angle. We even move the boom across and in line with the
wind angle on the gennekar. Between the tack lines I also tie a bungee cord.
It serves two purposes. In light winds, which is what we are dealing with,
the sail now and then backfills, and when it fills again there is a bit of a
jerky movement. The bungee absorbs this shock quite effectively and
preserving our sail. Then it also creates a pumping action as the sail fills
with a bit of wind, and gives us just a little extra speed. Yes, we are
trying everything to go fast, and to go safe, and to preserve our sails and
our boat and stretch every liter of diesel to the max. . Most difficult to do
in such light airs. And it does make a difference when you adjust your sail,
even just a little until you hit the sweet spot. Currents we also take into
consideration, and by changing our angles to optimize. All it takes is all we
got, all the time. We hope it is enough. Should the light breeze come off the
beam, we will also try our mainsail and gennekar together. At the moment the
wind is building very nicely, and we remain positive.

On the boat all is fine. One day flow into the next. Our fishing lure has not
lured any fish yet, too calm really. Progress with poi is slow but steady. We
are less than 1000nm from the Brazilian coast. Our current position is
09*35'S/21*12'W at 1pm UTC. To be crazy and not to be crazy, fine line :)
Over and out till next time.