A Calm Day!!!

08/26/02

The wind is down around 10 knots this morning, and we are gently rocking.  We will shake the last reef out of the main if this keeps up.  It is nice to be able to stand and sit in the cockpit for extended lengths of time without worrying about getting hit by a wave, which has happened to all of us several times in the past two weeks.  I can not think about anything but getting to Cape Town at this point, and to see Sue.  I would much rather be taking the trip with her than these guys, as they both get on my nerves in different ways.  Unfortunately, we still have almost 2300 miles to go, and will be lucky to make it by the 13th of September.  It will be so good to get away from this boat for a while.

I just finished reading the book “Cold Mountain”, and all I can think about is breakfast at Cracker Barrel, with country ham, eggs, biscuits and gravy, and grits.  I’m pretty sure that stuff can’t be found in Cape Town.

We are still waiting for the wind to swing around to the west.  Maybe the drop in wind is a precursor to that.  I hope so.

As of 1700, the wind has still died and it is trying to pick up again.  I noticed a small tear in the jib, and due to the lack of wind we were able to drop the sail and patch the tear pretty easily.  We had happy hour on the foredeck since I was sitting on  the sail and couldn’t move until the glue for the patch dried.

Eric has been trying to run the water maker today, since we are getting low on fresh water.  It ran for a few minutes and produced half a cup of water before the water stopped coming out.  He is cleaning the membrane to see if this will solve the problem.

It is nice to have a calm day for once.  I was able to trim my moustache and relax a little.  It is like having a day off.  We have also tacked over to starboard tack, which doesn’t mean much since there’s little wind anyway.  We are currently heading dead east at 2.5 knots.