South Pacific, Roaring 40s (not roaring right now) 13 April 2011 2:30AM Tahiti Time 44S50 165W09
It’s a little drizzly out so I was just sitting in the companionway facing forward well under the dodger, in the Kiwi driver’s seat of this boat, when some bright headlights flashed from behind casting long shadows on the inside of our dodger ceiling. Instinctively, I looked up where the rearview mirror should have been, seeing nothing, I sent a quick glance to where my sideview mirror should have been still nothing, so I turned around. There, barrelling down on me, was the moon coming out from behind the clouds, “watch those brights, your ruining my night vision!”
He ignored me.
I’d just been wondering what the chances were of seeing anything in this section of ocean. We’re in the roaring forties, so I know there must be fishing boats somewhere out here. But it is so big. 2000 nautical miles to go, to the little spec that is Rapa (our next island not to be confused with Rapanui/Easter Island, although we may get to Rapa for Easter). If we stayed this easterly course, and did not head north for the Australes, then the next land we’d hit would be Chile in 4000 NMi. NZ is about 800 NMi behind us. There are 1800 NMi to Antarctica, and I just crashed my chart plotter, trying to zoom out to see what major land mass is due north of us right, now assuming we’d miss any islands between here and there. So Antarctica is closer than Rapa…I think we’ll save that for another season. We’d need thicker woollies than we have now, and already as Leo pointed out, we’re at risk of compression fractures and suffocation with all these layers. So the population density in our neighborhood is pretty low right now. No boats yet (Yes I did just check anyway, still do every 15 minutes). The moon isn’t tailing me anymore. It’s black out when the clouds cover him up, black and wet.
And yes another relatively uneventful day, if you don’t count a brief moment of excitement when a rogue wave slapped the side of our hull dumping hundreds of gallons of water on our heads, causing Logan, in full foulies, to laugh gleefully, and me to cringe at the cold water dripping down my raised arm (the one that was holding onto the dodger). The autopilot in all the excitement blew a fuse that we didn’t know it had on the rudder motor. That was a first. It is a new autopilot, so always new things to learn. Luckily we bought it so we’d have a backup. But as I hand steered while Frank looked into the problem, I couldn’t help thinking of the afternoon it took him, at dock, to swap the old autopilot out for this one, the thought of swapping the old one back in, at sea, gave me pause…as did the notion of hand steering for the next 10 days. But Mr. Fix-it bypassed the fuse for now, not an ideal solution but, probably what MacGuyver would have done. For an item as expensive as an autopilot, you’d think it would be easy to toss in a few extra fuses in the box, or at least use a standard fuse. So now we know, stock up on those fuses, when next we reach a port that carries such items (2 months?); and the new autopilot does not like being knocked too far off course, and works too hard to get us back on course. I’ll have to have words with him, we do not require any overachievers onboard, this is an easygoing, do everything slow, go with the flow ship. If he gets off course now and then, it’s OK, we’ll take over for a bit, give him a break, nothing to blow a fuse over.
Good wind and sun this morning, not so much of either now. Thanks for sticking with me and keeping me awake on my dog watch.
xoxomo