Thursday, November 15, 2012

Peace Restored.

When I woke up on Thursday the wind was lighter. It continued to ease while I made yet another batch of English muffins and I began a several hours long process of trying to decide whether or not to motor. After breakfast, the breeze seemed to come back a bit. Then it sort of left again. Or was it just my perception? It was hard to say. The sails stayed full, not flogging at all thanks to barely any perceptible swell. In the early afternoon, though, I calculated an average speed of 1.8 knots, a good deal slower than most of us generally walk. I had been conflicted for hours, at least three times getting up from my berth resolute on starting the engine and somehow between the cabin and the cockpit convincing myself to hold off. When I mulled over the 1.8, though, and asked myself if I wanted to be at sea for another week, it became clear that I had better burn some fossil fuels.

I would have motor-sailed except that I wanted to go head to wind, and the breeze wasn't enough of a help to coax me off the rhumb line. I dropped the sails, put her in gear and threw a fishing line in the water. I hadn't really tried to fish on this passage because I knew that anything I would be excited to eat would end up going largely to waste, regardless of how diligently I stuffed myself. I knew from the radio, though, that Saltbreaker and Oyaragh had caught mahi-mahi and I wanted one last taste of that delightful flesh so badly. Previously I had been going too slowly for it to have been worthwhile to troll, but with the motor on, I figured I might as well.

The sound in the cabin was horrifying. I hated it. I always hate it. Some people say that they like when the engine is on, that they sleep better because it lulls them down; I say nay, the engine is an obnoxious beast. I much prefer the sound of the water on the hull and the kettle giving an occasional tap on the cupboard as the stove swings and the wooden framed mola I got in Panama years ago bumping against the bulkhead on which its hung, even if all these sounds mean my ears are always perked up, listening for changes, placing irregular sounds. The latter will keep me from sleeping, but I get a sort of perverse pleasure out of the process. Something I'm not used to hearing comes into the purview of my eardrums late at night and I will not be able to relax until I have determined what it is. I'll lie in my berth and count the seconds between soundings, then count the seconds on the swell, see if it's timed up, same on the wind chop. Gathering evidence. Scouring the deck and rigging or the contents of the cabin with my mind's eye until I place it. Sometimes it will really irk me and I'll get up and poke my head out of the cabin to try to get a bead on it. Not too long ago this happened at anchor. I still don't know what that sound was. It was hard to sleep after that one, but every time I poked my head up it would fail to recur, so eventually I had to let it go. I almost always figure it out after a while, though. Sound anal retentive? How about o.c.d.? Yeah, well, I really don't want things to break. And if they do, I want to know how, why and when. Ardea is my island, after all, and I don't mind playing the little game.

The engine ruins it though. The only solace comes in the abundance of electricity produced by the alternator. I put on my noise-canceling headphones and watched episodes of various old t.v. shows for a while, but that led to a severe case of moron-fishing. Between the engine rattle and the headphones, I hadn't a chance of hearing the reel pull. Eventually, my course seemed a little bit off; I knew because I was nestled in with a compass in my berth. I went up to check and realized the line was all the way out. I was shocked when I tested the line with my finger to learn that there was a fish still on there. I figured it would have taken the lure and some amount of line between most and all of what I had on the reel. I reeled it in; the fight was long since out of it. It fought the Perkins and the Perkins won. It was like John Henry. It was a small bonito, only about five or six pounds. Miraculously, it was still alive, which was great because I didn't want to eat it. I tossed him back and bid him luck. I thought about the poor old Mexican bonitos getting all eaten up by sailor-fishermen not used to catching superior species. Better to be a bonito on the latter portion of the cruising routes, for sure.

I threw the lure back out just for the hell of it. I planned to go put the headphones on again, but I didn't really care if I lost the lure. At some stage reeling in that little bonito I had thought to myself that it might be a real small mahi. I figured that's why I ought to throw the line back in. A real small mahi would be the perfect thing. I could gobble it up and not waste any and it would be a ceremonious farewell to the tropics. I may have become emotional, crying and cramming the fish prepared in various ways into my mouth. Ever seen the Simpson's episode where Homer raises a pet lobster called Pinchy and then accidentally cooks it in an effort to give it a hot bath? It would have been a little like that, except I wouldn't have boiled the mahi and I would have named it Grumpy instead, because I think mahi all look grumpy. I never caught Grumpy, though, so it's moot. Probably best. I don't really feel like killing anything anyway.

I motored all through the night, which was annoying because I had to set two alarms because it's easy to sleep through the watch alarm with all that noise [Ah, he's back on the noise again? Yes, I am, because that was my world for the period over which this post covers.] It was some of the most incredibly glassy calms I've ever seen, though, and the bioluminescence were also among the best yet. I would go deckside to check about and then just end up staring at the water passing by and lighting up all around. Even far from the boat, where my wake wasn't the source of disturbance, the little specks would light up all blueish gray and I stared in wonder. There had been lots of little jellyfish in the water that evening, which had deterred me from stopping for a swim; I thought maybe they had something to do with the constant microscopic mayhem.

By morning a light breeze had come up and put ripples on the surface, but there was still only a very long-period one-meter swell coming from some heavy weather in the southern ocean, I presume. I kept motoring. I spotted a cargo ship north of me and took bearings on it for a little while to make sure it wasn't on a collision course but then it altered course dramatically to the east and then back to the south, apparently to give me a wide berth. It passed well east of me, never got closer than three miles or so. I tried to get them on the radio but they didn't answer. I wondered where they were from. It was clear they were going to New Zealand. It was the first boat I had seen in a week, first major commercial vessel I've seen since Tahiti. Still not all that exciting.

The wind seemed to be improving throughout the day, if very slightly. I would have begun sailing earlier, but the breeze came from exactly the direction in which I needed to go in order to get into the more consistent and stronger breezes over the next few days. Also, the forecast showed that I shouldn't need diesel in the latter days of the passage, except to get into harbor, so I figured I'd might as well take the velocity-made-good and lose the weight while things were still not so great. Just before my daily meeting on the airwaves with the Kleemans, I put up sail, set a heart-breaking course of 150 magnetic and shut the beast down. It was glorious and it made the radio meeting all the more enjoyable. I had staged a miraculous come-from-behind victory in Battleship the day before, so today we just had a chat and I got some directions from Alex on how to make a simple home-made pasta, since I'm tiring of English muffins and feel like trying something new. As we both agreed, it's something to do.

After the Drifter's net the wind shifted a bit so I opted to tack and am now pointing just a little bit south of west, close-hauled in about eight to ten knots of breeze. As I write this, though, I am thinking I'll tack back over and take the southing. Yes, I give up bits of my hard earned westing, but I won't find much better winds until I get further south. In fact, there's no time to waste. I'm going to go tack right now. Then what? I don't know. Something, though. One week out. Five hundred miles to go. Not a whole lot to write about. Sorry for not telling you that ten-perfectly-good-minutes-of-your-life ago.

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