Where the Wild Things Are

Moonlight

I wish you could see what I’m seeing right now. Our moon, my moon tonight, holds court, half full and silvery bright across the ocean. Dappling the ragged water with its soft reflection, the horizon wavers in the distance. Aleta tracks along, her invisible helmsman effortlessly compensating for the swell. Our wake spills out from her bow and roils off to either side like scrambled eggs on a hot griddle.

When the wind picks up, Aleta heels hard to starboard and leaps ahead. Big rollers occasionally check her exuberance by sending boiling sea water up to, but not quite over, the cockpit coaming. She’ll shudder from the crack of a cheeky wave on her port side. It is a sound so familiar we can all count the two second delay before the tossed bucket of spray smacks the dodger with a staccato thump. Shattered fumes of seawater furl around the cockpit sparking tiny personal rainbows. Merrily we bounce along.

Sleep Watch

Carol and I both thought we’d have plenty of spare time for reading on this long passage. We would set Aleta’s sails and she’d take care of the hard work. With Tai along, our watch schedule is a three-on, six-off arrangement. Not too onerous at night. Each of us gets a solid six hours of down time.

Yet, between watches there’s still plenty of work. Besides eating and drinking, we have a steady list of repairs, on-going navigational adjustments for weather, and similarly resetting the sails.

When we returned from the Bahamas to the States last May with Tom, our biggest fear was exhaustion. Aleta’s crew sleeps variously well underway. Here, in order of soundness, is how we fare:

• Carol: uses earplugs and eyeshades when at home in bed. Sleep comes to her fleetingly out here, but deeply when it does.
• Marlon: sleeps well in a flat calm, snuggles up in 10-15 knots, grabs on for dear life in a rollicking heel.
• Mike: I forgo earplugs and eyeshades and still generally sleep well. However, I wake at the slightest change in conditions, usually for no purpose.
• Tai: comatose to the point of moribundity once her head hits the pillow. She consumes any spare sleep cycles available.

Forecasts

If the weather is a dull topic of conversation on land, it’s all we talk about at sea. Fortunately, there’s some great not-so-old-school tech to keep us up to date and busy.

Radiofax marine broadcasts have been around a while. Through our SSB radio we can receive fairly detailed forecasts up to 96 hours out. Images are sent over radio waves as sounds, chirps, that are re-interpreted as black or white lines or letters on a document. Just like a fax machine. It’s a free global service. You just have to be listening at the time it’s broadcast with the right gear, in our case the Sailmail app. We also use Sailmail to download Gribs and send position updates.

We aren’t complete Luddites. Just cheap. Aleta is satellite capable, we haven’t yet bit the very expensive bullet and bought a contract. Mostly because the analogue stuff works pretty well.

Squalls to the Walls

A couple of nights ago we met our first serious line of squalls. Extending from 60 degrees to port all the way to the distant horizon on our starboard side, our course dead-ended. The moon lit up a giant thunderhead pillowing into the sky directly ahead of us. Dark bands of rain hung beneath it in curtains and blotted our view completely. Like a Portuguese man o’war, it looked both menacing and dangerous.

Motoring in the flat calm, I tucked a double reef into the mainsail in anticipation. Then I went below to secure the cabin and wake Carol.

The question was, what do we do? Motor through it? Put sail up in case we need to heave to? Uncertain we took to our library for answers. Beth Leonard says the most practical thing is to lower your sails and motor through the squalls. If it’s calm you’ve spent a couple of gallons of diesel. If it’s blowing 50 knots, you probably saved your sails.

We last experienced a line squall in Greece on our honeymoon. A fast moving front blew straight out of the west blinding us with a torrential downpour. We dropped our sails and motored then, so it seemed prudent to do it again.

Radar and a lack of wind and waves confirmed this system was moving slowly. (Our radar has a weather mode that’s finally proved helpful. It gave us a real understanding of the size and density of the clouds, along with their general direction.) We picked our route and like two lost children made our way into the dense, forbidding forest in front of us.

Quietly we snuck between the angry Cimmerian giants so as not to draw attention. I’m pretty certain we’d found where the wild things are.

I like this part of our adventure. The part where we are faced with a challenge, one that might be life or death. So much the better when we have time to assess the situation, agree on a plan, execute the plan, and finally file our experience under lessons for next time.

• Posted from s/v Aleta: 25^o 38’ N 66^o 38’ W, day 7 at sea