Fri 5pm Teatime... I keep fancying chocolate biscuits with my tea! A grey sky. No wonder we're rolling around - the swell is quite steep-to and only 7 seconds apart, so even though only 2-2.5m/6-8ft high, the effect is very noticeable - especially when an even larger one comes by. With little sunshine, the lovely deep blue of yesterday's sea has given way to a grey-green.
My joblist now only has one final item awaiting calmer conditions, being a deck job - renewing bungies on the deck blocks leading lines aft to a winch, cleat or clutch. I also checked the whiteboard over the chart table and decided that, of the jobs listed there, just about all of them were either done or irrelevant - so with great glee, I wiped the board completely clean! I know of three jobs that never made it onto the joblists. They're not relevant to this particular journey, being more to do with the cruising life I'm supposed to be leading.... so they can wait for quite a time. If they get done before I'm back, it will be a nice bonus.
Sunset around 7.30pm PDT - nothing spectacular tonight - lots of grey cloud around still with just a few breaks. Rain falling from under a big cloud in the distance encouraged me to replace the zippered clear storm screen I'd taken down last week - it gives good protection to the companionway in rain.
Actually, we had no rain, or even a hint of it.
Enjoyed a delicious asparagus omelette tonight...
9pm Suddenly, things went quiet - the strong wind had switched off and had eased to 12-14kt. Soon, everything felt a lot smoother, with just an occasional big wave giving a sudden violent motion. A short while later, in NE 14-16kt, we're making 6.7kt. I went up on deck to check - often on nearing a big raincloud, the wind drops ahead of it but then comes back suddenly with a vengeance.... No raincloud in sight. Just the bright moon, shining through a gap in the clouds. The wind is up and down but we make good speed. Time to get to my bunk.
Sat 7.30am PDT Red/orange sun rising behind line of broken cloud on E horizon. We're visited by a red-footed booby... Distinctive white bird with black markings on its upper wings . Circling around for quite a time but I couldn't get it framed in the camera...
10.30am Sky has clouded over - grey with a couple of small blue patches. Wind has remained down around 12 kt from NNE and swell has diminished. Ambling along, often headed due S.
Funny how all the days are undistinguished from each other out here - I have to remind myself of the day of the week. For 'normal' people, it being Saturday or Sunday matters - weekends are not the time to contact anyone at work! At least my time zone has remained unchanged - I'm still in PDT and expect to stay in that time zone for quite a time. It's a good thing I keep a regular, handwritten log, otherwise I might totally lose track of the date!
More woodwork repairs to make - galley door top hinge has lost its screws again and as I went to the mast to release the line holding the 1st reef cringle forward, before shaking out the first reef in these light winds, I noticed a strut beside the port gate in the lifelines had lost both its screws - so its back to being carpenter/handyman again today!
1200 PDT - end of Day17. We made 127 n.ml. (DMG) over the 24 hr period since yesterday. Wil be less tomorrow, I'm thinking. Some sun getting out between clouds - gently ambling along still at 5-5.5kt.
Position & weather report posted to Winlink.org and Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign of kc2iov) not long after midday PDT (=1900 GMT):
TIME: 2018/10/20 19:00 LATITUDE: 22-13.26N LONGITUDE: 128-06.83W COURSE: 205T SPEED: 5.3kt
WIND_SPEED: 11kt WIND_DIR: NE SWELL_DIR: NE SWELL_HT: 1.5m CLOUDS: 50% BARO: 1018hPa TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 23.0C SEA_TEMP: 30.0C COMMENT: A lot calmer but still rolling a lot... Warming up.
