'Twas a Dark and Windy Morning...

Pacific Crossing, Day 8: Haven't seen the sun for a few days, but the wind from the NNE is fair, even if the seas are the kind you look up at. A dry spot in the cockpit is hard to find. Read S/V Estrellita's post from yesterday (we share them via email) for a hilarious take on the high dudgeon that's our collective lot from searching for those nice, regular seas and easy trade winds. Not happenin'. Google them at TheGiddyupPlan at blogspot. Craig McPheeters aboard Luckness had these seas yesterday, and he's still beating to windward toward Hilo, Hawaii.

Here on the ole Sockdolager we have no justifiable complaints, except for one: there appear to be not one, but TWO Intertropical Convergence Zones. A real equatorial funhouse down there.

Flying circles around the mast and trying to land on it was a juvenile brown booby (that's a BIRD, Cuzzin.) It tried for nearly an hour to land on the masthead, where its heavy body would have damaged our wind indicator, so I waved a boat cushion and dog-barked at it. It could land anywhere but the masthead and we'd let it, but nooo, it wanted the top perch. Luckily we were rolling a lot. But suddenly it dropped down to the water directly ahead of us and tried to land on a rock... WHAT? A ROCK? The rock moved. It had a head, and a face. As we bore down on it,the face gave us this look: "HOLY Ca-RAP!" and the rock, a three-foot wide Hawksbill turtle, paddled madly out of the way. We missed it by two feet.

Great Circle sailing is different. We're on our electronic rhumb line, but on the Mercator Chart #51 we're making an arc north of the plotted line. Interesting to actually experience it, along with the temptation to head more south too soon. So for now, we're still broad-reaching on starboard tack under heavily reefed sails, rolling like mad, surfing down wave faces at 7+ knots, and hanging on.

We live out here now...
We live out here now...
Yay, the sun just came out! Life is good.

Sent via Ham radio