The Doldrums Blues

I am genuinely sullen. It's not my fault though. The sky is imbued with melancholy. It is the weather for brooding. Not just the weather, but the effect the weather has on the landscape. Sure, it's immensely beautiful, but it is not a jubilant beauty. It invokes quiet among onlookers. It reminds me of a New England harbor, very early in the morning, a fisherman in a yellow smock observing from the beach- all the lobster boats and fishing vessels and sailboats bobbing slowly and evenly at their moorings on glassy water amid a low, still fog. Yes, that would invoke the same sort of, not sadness, melancholy and, as in our case now, the feeling is made complete- the landscape more than a landscape- by the presence of the viewer. Without the viewer- without Ardea bobbing slowly along, her sails and rigging an incompetent orchestra providing a dissonant accompaniment- this would only be another kind of weather. But add the little boat and the vastness around her and the blanket mottled shades of gray in every conceivable direction (up and down) and the dashed hopes of those intrepid mariners who had been clipping along so well. Then it's a scene of glum introspection. If it were a painting, it would be metaphorical- 'drifting in the quiet expanse' or 'perusing the void'. But, instead, it's just us, having been now formerly introduced to the inter-tropical convergence zone.

The inherent injustice of being robbed of wind on a passage is made worse in the doldrums by the need to cross them just after the half-way point in the voyage. There we were, just under twelve hundred nautical miles to go and the patchy cumulus clouds that had been our joyful company, graciously blocking the hot sun at just the right intervals for almost two weeks, began to thicken to the southeast. They began to gain altitude in the southwest. East of us, they started to melt together. Like cookies placed too close together on a baking sheet, convection was expanding our friends the puffy cumulus clouds. Then, the rising warm air of five degrees North started to stretch them into the higher altitudes. Soon it was only to the north that we could still see signs of the idyllic trade winds that had treated us so well. What were cumulus ahead of us became cumulonimbus and with them came rain.

The first rain was joyous. We were smelly and it had been hot out for so long. We danced about on deck merrily and with little effort collected a couple gallons of fresh water in a bucket so that we could wash up. We scrubbed the deck and the rigging and Ardea was glad for a bath. But after that rain the sky never cleared. Rain has come and gone, the clouds having fully explored the spectrum of methods for soaking us down: tiny speckles of raindrops to cannonballs of water, slow drizzle to torrential downpour.

About the wind, however, we care a great deal more. It has struggled to maintain its former gusto. We've avoided being totally becalmed, thankfully, but since Sunday evening (4/29) we haven't been able to maintain the 6 or more knots that we'd held for so long. Based on the ship's log, I'd mark the ITCZ at 5 degrees 1 minute North. Based on weatherfax images, it is about 70 nm wide at our location. Having accepted our woeful exit from the northern hemisphere trades, our singular focus is now to get across this wretched band. We're having some success hunting down the northeast sides of squall systems; when we get one, we point straight South. It's a game of cat and mouse, but I'll be the first to say that the gusty high winds of the squalls are greatly preferable to crawling along at 2 knots. Sadly, we even threw the engine on for an hour or so to aid in our storm chasing. (We've all become very hardened against use of the engine, but since our total run time is still less than four hours and we're 17 days into the passage, we decided running down a squall or two with the old iron sail wouldn't be too huge a knock on our sailor's pride.)

With a bit of luck, we should clear the ITCZ in a day or so. We still won't have solid breeze until we get to about five degrees South, but hopefully conditions will be improving throughout the push to that point. Tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning we will be within one thousand miles of Hiva Oa. That fact and a visit from several dozen dolphins during the last squall, have boosted spirits in spite of our inadequate pace and the morose landscape. In the end, subdued as the crew may be, it feels a distinct honor to be in this very strange part of the world. Even though their creation has meant the dissipation of our beloved breeze, watching the numerous individual weather systems all around us is a unique experience. Still, I expect that with our impending equator crossing and as the southern trades begin to build, this little boat will once again abound with wide-eyed anticipation, for we all look forward to feeling the sand of the South Pacific Isles beneath our feet.

Here we are at 0630 Zulu 4/30/12:

Position: 04 deg 36.8' N 128 deg 37.5' W
Course: 180 T
Speed: 3.8 kt
Wind: 8 kt NE
Swell: 1 m NE
Baro: 1011
Fish: One mackerel about 5 pounds this morning, which I released. Two small tuna (young bigeye or yellowfin, 8 lbs or so each) this afternoon (threw one back). Had two large tuna on lines this evening but lost both and the lures due to poor angling on Dana and my part.