2002

Ocean Planet Report
Friday, November 22, 2002 1230gmt

This sure beats yesterday. That was a fun filled day of slatting around in between periods of wind, lots of sail changes, unreefing, reefing, and finally concluding with slamming beat into the night. For much of yesterday and last night we sorely missed Igor, the retired working jib and had to rely on the staysail and Frankenstein, the tired, reefed mainsail.

Early this morning the wind started lifting, or slowly clocking to the north. There was still a hefty chop from the east so the ride was quite exciting for many hours with an excessive amount of “airtime” and harsh pounding. Brad, just to the south, sent an email that he was pounding so hard he had a headache! Now the east chop is dying down, and we are finally making some tracks towards Cape Town. Hurray!! We should go pretty fast for the next couple days and then it gets iffy again. But I’ll take what I can get and make the most of it for now. I’m ready to get there.

Odd sight a little while ago. Before a trip to the foredeck, I was watching a huge, older looking Albatross glide around and then forgot about it as I hoisted and set the reaching jib. This took a while, but after finally getting sheeted in and on course, I looked ahead and the giant bird is SITTING in the water right in front of us. I yelled and waved (too late to get to the autopilot), but it wasn’t until the last few seconds that the big bird reluctantly and laboriously unfolded it wings and began trotting on the surface to gain takeoff speed. The contrast between its incredible grace in the air and its clumsy takeoff struck me as funny and I had to laugh, but I shouted apologies for making him(?) move.

I wouldn’t surprised to be the victim of a herring poop bombardment later on…..

From the southern half of our Ocean Planet, Earth,
Bruce