Rain, rain, rain. Heavy, light, straight, sideways, short lived, or like now, everlasting. That’s been on the menu du jour since my last report. Little by little, by riding baby squalls, this morning, it felt like I had escaped the doldrums. Not so, I’m not sure what you call what I’m stuck in but it’s wet and slow going, with heavy banging in swell on the bow, and the sails slatting. Maybe by tomorrow we’ll be in better sailing conditions. I’m still trying to figure out my next step wrt the boom damage. For now, we’re sailing under-canvassed, if that’s even a word. Things are also slow going inside the cabin as the skipper is being adjusted to the reality of what he’s signed himself up for. There’s been a lot of work done to get some real sleep. I sleep with the hatch open so that if wind picks up or it rains, I can hope that it’ll wake me up, and I can try to harvest some forward momentum from the baby squalls. Quick note: I’m not asking for monster squalls! Just came back from a few trips outside. The wind is gone again. I took a reef out of the mainsail, and discovered a batten cap stud had come unscrewed. So I had to fix that. Then I noticed that the batten of the genoa was lying on the foredeck. So I’ll have to look at that later on. I’m just hoping to get out of the doldrums now. Really.
I spent a week stuck in the Pacific High sailing from Hilo to Victoria. So I appreciate your willingness to escape the doldrums. It was during that time though that I experienced my “Moitessier moment”. You never know where it will come from.