Sunshine, Birds & Ice Cold Showers

Well, we lost our great wind so much to our chagrin we had to fire up the iron ginny. As we’ve said before, we’re not purists. We’d don’t enjoy bobbing around making no progress. It’s why we carry extra fuel on board and we will use it when necessary. Not only that but we’ve got a low pressure system headed our way so we need to keep moving to stay on its good side.
The good news is that the past two days have been absolutely beautiful! The sun’s been out. We’ve had little cloud cover and the sea state is pretty nice with long, large Pacific rollers. Of course when you’re going with the swell it’s always a much more comfortable ride. Today we actually got to sit in the cockpit with shorts on. It was amazing to feel the warmth of the sun again even if just for a few hours!
Of course the on deck shower was still brutally cold! If you’ve never taken a shower in ice cold water on the deck of a boat going 6 knots with a 12-15 knot cold breeze, you’ve missed a truly invigorating part of life. Either that or you are just a bit more sane than the average sailor. One thing is for certain, by the time we reach Tonga I’m going to need a weed whacker to cut down the forest of hair on my legs because it’s just too damn cold to worry about that now. Stock tip of the day…buy Gillette! I’m sure I’m going to boost prices with the truckload of razors I’ll be buying upon our arrival as I don’t dare try to use my epilator on these cheetah cheetah gams of mine. I can’t imagine the pain that it would cause if it tried to rip inch long hairs from the forest of growth on my legs.
While I was on my mid morning watch yesterday I saw a huge bird come flying by. It had a wingspan of at least six feet. It was white with silver tipped wings and it was absolutely stunning! I’ve never seen one of these before so I was a bit curious and couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Of course by the time I thought to get my camera it was gone but Dan’s pretty sure I saw an Albatross. Sailors believe they are good luck. Given the two beautiful days we’ve had, I’d say I concur.
Today on my mid morning watch I found two stowaways. We had two small Swallows on the foredeck. One was sitting on the jib sheet and the other on the dinghy. I found it amazing that these tiny birds were all the way out here. The closest land to us is 239 NM east at Curtis Island. That’s a long way for little guys like this. Of course I felt bad for them and since the Captain was sleeping I got some bread and fed them on the dink. He gets a little cranky when I feed the wildlife but they were obviously hungry because they gobbled up the Dazzler buffet before heading off again. Fortunately for me they didn’t leave any droppings to prove their existence and if there’s no photographic evidence then it didn’t really happen right? (Wink, Wink)
We had an amazing sunset this evening and Dan even grilled chicken for us for dinner. That’s a nice and pretty rare treat underway as grilling when it’s windy isn’t really an option. And tonight it’s simply beautiful on my watch. As I took over at 2330 the sky was clear and the stars are bright. There’s just something so magical about the sky when there is no land based light pollution. The stars appear so close you could reach out and grab them and you feel like you truly could ride the Milky Way. The half moon is just starting to rise. As it breaks through the horizon it is red and orange and glows like some sort of UFO in the distance. Before long it has risen about 15° and now its silvery beams shine a path that lead across the water straight to Dazzler. This is the reason I love the night watch!
Until next time,
Jilly
S 29°04.322’ E 177°.28.655’ 485 NM Norh Of Whangarei, New Zealand 630 NM to Nuku’alofa, Tonga