Venus, the Goddess of Love

I had the early morning 3 to 6 watch, and what an awesome sight to watch
the moon sinking in the west, and Venus rising in the east. Venus, the
goddess of love. The morning star and the evening star. In the mornings
before the sun rises she spreads her message of love, and at night she
once again reminds us of her message of love. It really is that simple. A
bit further up in the sky the Southern Cross was also more and more
visible as the moon dropped further and further in the west. A little bit
of star shine left over before the day begins. Thus Venus spreading her
message of love to all for corners of the world. But I wonder, as I often
do, just what the heck that word love means. And once again I must
conclude that there are as many meanings for the word love as there are
people. That is if every person only has one idea of what the word love
means. Then we already have about 5 billion meanings for the word,
assuming that there are 5 billion people on planet Earth. I wonder what
your one absolute definition of love would be.

We would love a bit of wind. It's now been eight days motoring with
whatever sail configuration we can to use the maximise the little bit we
get. We find ourselves 15* below the equator, where the trade winds
normally blow. And still, wind is eluding us. Will we find the wind or
will the wind find us, both ways will be just fine :) Yesterday the wind
did start showing signs of coming through, and for an hour or two we could
even sail without a motor running. This morning a big dark cloud bank was
obscuring the sunrise, and as it got closer the wind veered from east to
south. Quickly took the gennekar down and furled out the genoa, the wind
now coming on over our port beam, all 7 kts of it. Then it got up to 20
kts as the cloud moved in and blessed us with a good downfall of rain.
Half an hour later, wind from the east again, the sun breaking through the
clouds, the gennekar up and flying, and the wind still 7 kts.I have never
had so little wind for so long, and I have never wanted it more. Besides
falling a little behind on our required average, we are also burning a lot
of fuel. We started with 1200 ltrs, normally we would only use about 600
ltrs to the Caribbean. We have about 700 ltrs of fuel left. Hopefully the
wind will find us soon enough. Should we have to stop for fuel we can
fortunate alert our contacts ahead of time and they will stand ready when
we arrive. F1 pit stop is what we call it. I do however hope that we can
have a clean run to Panama. We have at least covered just over 2000 nm so
far, only 8000 nm to go. We have positioned ourselves as well as we could
best current and trade winds, we are now only waiting for go go go !!!

In the interim, I have taken up poi. For those who don't know, it is an
ancient performance art, started by the Maori in New Zealand. In a nutshell
it is a length of cord with a weight on the end. You then swing these poi
in all types of directions to create all sorts of patterns. You may have
seen a performer dipping his cotton balls in paraffin, setting them alight,
and then playing with fire. Anyway, google it, much more info available,
even on how to do it. I have been watching and wondering about this artform
for a while, and in a short succession have met three people who practise
poi. Last year I ran into Fortaleza to assist a fellow skipper who was stuck
there. He shared his passion for poi with me. On my previous delivery crew
member Alexander practised with socks and tennisballs, and on this trip Stuart
is quite good at it. The real Mc Coy, or Mc Closkey, as is his surname. We
thus have now on board the flying dutchman, the french rocket, and the real mc.
Having the real cotton balls, made from 8mm cotton rope knotted into a monkey
fist with chain and swivels and leather thongs for your fingers. Holding one in
the left hand and one in the right hand, you start by swinging these balls
forward or backward. To get the left and the right hand to do what you want
them to do at the same time is quite tricky. Swinging them forward you are
bound to get hit in the where it hurts most for guys :( First you want to,
sorry for the descriptive words, vomit, then you want to crap, and then you
just want to die. But eventually the pain subsides, and you very gingerly sling
the poi on your fingers again. This time you practise swinging backwards and
you get one in the eye. Ouch, and you down on your knees again, and once again
the pain subsides after a while. So you quickly learn to respect these poi and
focus on what you are doing. Not get carried away and loose control. Every
little step forward takes a little guts, but once you've cracked it, it leaves
you with a big smile :))) It also takes a bit of time, a bit of want to. It is
quite relaxing. You get into a zone, totally focused on what you are doing. And
you can do it just about anywhere. Strange that one of the top three main poi
events is held annually in San Francisco, our end destination. More than enough
space on a catamaran to practise :)

We have a fishing lure out, the boyz are surfing behind the boat on our cutting
board. Tie a mooring line through holes on the board, the other ends to the
back of the boat. Safety harness tied to a length of rope attached to the
davit, a structure at the back of the boat on which smaller inflatable boats
are secured. The davit can be lowered and raised to lift your rubber duck out
of the water. You press a small button and a cable and pulley system with an
electric motor does the work for you. Back to the surfers, it is physically
more taxing than one thinks and soon you are back on board. A lot of fun in the
sun nevertheless. Our position is 13*41'S/010*00'W at 12:00 UTC. C.O.G. 295*T,
wind in the sail 7kts and S.O.G. just over 6kts motoring at 1800rpm. A bit of
current assisting us as well.

Take good care, and hope you catch a glimpse of the moon, and of Venus. And for
all the people that do Valentine's, happy Valentine's.