Living in a Washing Machine

08/20/02

This motion is really starting to fray my nerves.  Last night I spilled hot noodles and gravy all over the table and my leg when eating dinner.  It was hard enough dealing with the problem of keeping my plate level, but the addition of cleaning up the spill was almost too much.  It is a major frustration to eat dinner from a moving plate.  Then, after dinner I was in the head, and was tossed from the toilet seat, breaking off the seat lid.  I felt like the boat was against me for my every movement, and I am losing my will to fight back.  The problem is apparently that the wind and the current are at odds with one another, and the results are these confused, choppy seas.  Last night the crashing of the boat was quite intense, and we rolled the jib down past the third reef to slow the boat enough to reduce the crashing.  On every crash, I was expecting for something to break, as every fixture on the boat was being strained.  Later in the night, things got better, and I was able to get some semi-quality sleep when off-watch.  Although I seem to have stopped the dripping with my t-shirt dams, my sheet has been permanently saturated.  I figure the fabric is now 65% cotton and 35% sea salt.

It is now 1600, and the wind and waves have gotten worse again.  The wind has increased to 25-30 knots and the waves are all over the place, constantly hammering the boat, and throwing it around.  I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but the body slam action was too much.  Eric estimates we have seen some waves up to 15 feet.  He unfortunately decided to serve soup for lunch today, before he realized how hard it would be to eat.  Luckily there were no mishaps, but as I ate it, using one hand to adjust the bowl and the other to eat, I had one leg on the galley table seat and the other on the armrest.  The boat continues to make scary noises as it pounds the waves, and I expect some catastrophic failure in the rigging, but I need to have more confidence in this boat.  I have to stop complaining about the weather, as I am learning that the sea does not take kindly to complainers.