23 Mar 1082nm from Los Cabos, 09d 55.00 N, 122d 54.00 W – Friday, 23nd March, 2001
 This is what it is all about |
Hello to you all.
Today is Day 6 and we are now 1082nm miles from Los Cabos. It is difficult to write a journal entry; the seas have been seas and every time I sit down to write, my stomach becomes queasy. The skies are mostly cloudy, with the sun coming out in the afternoon. Seas are 6-8 foot swell and building with spindrift. Each day it has gotten warmer. Today the water temperature is 79 degrees.
Sharry’s report: Our days have a lovely rhythm. My watch is 0900-1200 and 2100-2400, Don’s is 0600-0900 and 1800-2100. I sleep 1200–0800, get up have coffee with Don, do my watch, do my exercises if there is not too much motion, study French, do some chore, read and just look around me and think a lot. Sometimes I nap. I fix dinner for Don and I around 1830, and then do my watch again before I go to bed. Today’s chore was setting up email addresses for our Starr Journal and website. I would do some work and then stop until I get unsick and then do a little more. One might say that the days are boring, but boring on an ocean passage is a very good thing. I look forward to boring for another week.
The first new understanding was that the Pacific Ocean is huge. It is very strange to be surrounded by horizon. It is like sitting in the middle of a huge flat, round platter. I can understand how the early navigators thought that they would fall off the edge of the ocean because it looks like there is an edge encircling us. While the first feeling was that the ocean is huge and we are very very tiny little nothings, at the same time I feel that our world is here on this ship and the platter of ocean surrounding us. It feels huge, but it also feels contained. It’s hard to explain. I guess that it’s because of the horizon line surrounding us. The days slip away like sand in an hourglass. The wind is on our stern, so Starr rides up on a wave and then slides down the other side. The sea has rhythm as do the days.
Don’s report: Other than email, our only contact with the world is a single sideband radio. We are picking up stations from China, Havana, and Russia in addition to Voice of America. It is interesting to listen to the different perspectives and propaganda. We had some company last night. Two boobies spent the night on board. A boobie is a fluffy brown seabird with a three foot wingspan and clumsy webbed feet, and boy are they dumb. You can honk a horn at them, yell at them, walk right up to them and they won’t move. This morning the only way to get them off the back deck was to herd them with the garden hose up to the rail. I then lifted them over the side with the boat pole. They spent the next couple of hours trying to get back on board while Donna fended them off with the hose. They eventually lost interest and moved on. We also had flying fish on the deck this morning. We see them flying across the water each day. They are about 8″ long and a 1″ diameter body, quite tubular and round. The wings are about 4″ long on each side.
I have been dragging fishing lines for the last couple of days. I am using my light weight trout gear: the make up is size 4 hook on 300 pound leader with a red and white hoochie hooked up to 250 pound test line. This is hung off of a 12′ fiberglass pole with a quick release at the tip of it and the line is made fast to the cleat on the boat. At the tip of the pole there is a cow bell with clangs when the line is pulled out of its release. Today we had our first catch: an 18-30 pound yellow fin tuna, depending on whose guess you want to believe. It stood as high as my shoulder when I held it up. Sharry took a picture to prove it. Sashimi and tuna steaks for dinner. Mechanically all is well. I’ll tell you about the fuel bladder and fuel consumption in my next journal entry. Talk to you later.
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