The Return of the Jib

06/30/02

    The barometric pressure has continued to rise through yesterday and into this morning.  It is now 1038 mb, which is higher than Eric remembers ever seeing before.  With the high pressure comes very light winds that happen to be coming from the direction that we want to go. We started motoring last night at 2000, and are still motoring as of 1000 this morning. 

    Eric figures we have enough diesel fuel to make it to Flores, where we could stop and anchor and get some jerry cans of fuel with the dinghy before continuing to Horta.  We are hoping to pick up some wind so this won’t be necessary.  It doesn’t look promising at this point.

    Now that we have the bobstay set up pretty solid, we are going to revisit the jib furler to see if we can get that to work.  In light winds, it will make a big difference if we can use the jib.  David and I emptied out the sail locker to see if the jerry cans (located in the very bottom of the locker) happened to have any fuel left in them.  They didn’t. 

    The sail locker is behind the forward head.  To get to it, you must put down the toilet seat lid and open the huge door.  There is a mass of fenders (two huge ones and five medium sized), sail bags, a rigging bag filled with assorted pieces of line, the gas tank for the big dinghy engine, and several coils of very heavy docking line.  It was a two man job to empty this sucker out.

    Before lunch, we decided to have a go at setting the jib.  Eric and David went forward with the strap wrench and I stayed back to handle the sheets.  The jib came out easily enough.  I just hope we can get it back in when the time comes. 

    This was a glorious time.  We had all the sails set – main, jib, and staysail, and the wind had picked up and become favorable.  We were close-hauled, making 6.5 knots, and were playing a tape of waltzes and polkas of Johann and Josef Strauss.  The piece “My Life is Love & Joy Waltz” Opus 253, of Josef Strauss, was particularly inspiring.  It just doesn’t get much better than this.  We can only hope this continues to Horta.

    At 1530, the wind has picked up a little and we are uncomfortably heeling.  We went out and rolled the jib to one of the reef points (“the first dot”).  The roller furling jib has three blue dots on it which signify reef points.  To reduce the size of the jib, we roll it in until the next blue dot is even with the headstay.  Things are a bit better after this adjustment, but not much.  I anticipate more reefing (perhaps the main) in the near future.

    We passed into a new time zone today.  When that happens, we set the clocks forward an hour at noon.  This means that whoever is on watch at noon gets a bonus watch reduction from three hours to two hours.  Today I was the lucky one.

    I have been listening to the “Heart of the Sea” book on tape the last couple of nights.  This book tells the story of the sinking of the whaleship Essex, and goes into great detail as to the mechanics of the whaling business in the early 19th century.  Yesterday I was sitting in the cockpit, thinking about the lookouts in the crow’s nest looking for whale spouts.  At that moment I looked off into the distance and saw a spout of water rising from a wave.  I studied the wave where I saw the spout, and a few seconds later saw it again.  “Thar she blows!”, I exclaimed, and beckoned David to come out and look.  We saw the spouts a couple more times, but did not see any of the actual whale, as it was too far away.

    We had an excellent happy hour snack today, of smoked oysters with mustard on the home-made bread.  The wind is holding up, and we are sailing comfortably.  We are on the “money tack”, as Eric calls it.  That is the tack that is closest to the actual course we want to be on (the rhumb line).  Unfortunately it is not quite on the money, and we are currently pointed a little north of Flores.

    Last night, David and I had happy hour and dinner by ourselves.  Eric was not feeling well, and was continuing to rest.  Thankfully, he felt better this morning.  David and I were understandably nervous, as the worst possible thing would be for something to happen to Eric, though at this point I think David and I would be capable of getting the boat to a port, still very few decisions are made without Eric’s input.