Still on a reach. I am starting to wonder when conditions will change. It becomes lighter in the evening but the breeze is still up in the afternoon, forcing me to put the blast reacher up during that time.
Now it is all cloudy again. I am starting to feel the fatigue from the previous days. The solar panels still aren't working, or maybe the little 20W gives me half an amp in the cloud and I am not getting much sleep.
It is warm during the day so I prefer to steer at night. I try to sleep in the morning, in the light stuff so I can run the autopilot on a lower gain and use less power - sleep longer. Personal situation still on my mind - sometimes throwing me into weird emotional states. Anger. Frustration.
I put one kite up in the lighter stuff. I was lazy and launched it while the blast reacher was up, without the net. I then took down the blast reacher but didn't put the net up as I was planning on hoisting the blast reacher again if the wind picked up again.
Wrap. Probably because I am tired. About a million times around the headstay. Crap. I try to unwrap from the helm but I can't and I have to go forward to bring the kite down. The halyard doesn't want to come down. I look up and it seems that the jib halyard and the spin halyard are wrapped around each other. I open up the clutch for the jib halyard and yank on it. That frees up the spin halyard. Phew. I was starting to see myself go aloft, wrap the spinnaker with sail ties around the forestay and free up the halyard from the top of the mast. Thank God. I am back in business.
This has tired me. I think of Skip, and of everyone rooting for me. I just can't find the motivation to race. I have no idea what the other boats are doing and I don't care. I just want the kite up because I like sailing with the kite up.
I then reset, this time take the blast reacher down and put up the net, which makes me sail bare poled for a short while. I launch the spinnaker from the bow as the wind isn't wild. Bad idea. Huge wrap around itself as I launch. Darn. I have to gather the spinnaker again, this time it got wet. No damage but I am wet, sitting on the foredeck with a lot of wet sail all around me.
I put the blast reacher up again and I go down below to rest...I am still sleeping in the clothes I am wearing and still mostly on cushions on the floor. This time, wrapped around a wet spinnaker. I sleep for a couple of hours. I wake up and say sorry outloud to the folks following my progress.
I am going to see clouds for a looooong looooong time.
much warmer during the day but on a reach so I am still wearing a jacket on the side to protect myself from spray.
When I wake up, the wind has gone further aft and Elise is on a broad reach. I am too tired to set a kite up again. I know that with a bit of food and a bit of water things are better again but the blast reacher is becoming slow. I set the twin sails instead. I take out my foul weather gear for the afternoon. My skin needs to breathe. I just wear a couple of t-shirts for a couple of hours. And socks and boots. I feel like I am straight out of the Hair musical...
Finally, I am starting to see the breeze come aft
The sunsets is beautiful and I much prefer sailing at night - the temperature is now perfect. The wind is lighter at night unfortunately.
Putting away the blast reacher and hoping to never have to take it back out, except perhaps right at the finish.
Things are also starting to be dryer on deck and I decide that the following day I will work on that electrical problem. Nothing broke today so maybe I won't go breaking something every day. I eat a couple of eggs a day, a couple of yogurts a day, an orange a day and the rest depends on what is available. I eat better at night and tonight I have been enjoying a bagel based sandwich with some hard cheese and cornichons. Absolutely delicious. I drink a lot of Pellegrino flavored water. Love this stuff.
When I look at all the cans and plastic bottles I have brought with me, I can't help thinking about Tori...and betraying her environmental mission. Sorry...
On my daily patrol I now notice that the rivets that hook up the vang to the boom are loose. The fix is easy if the vang breaks loose. Just running a line through the holes would work. Since it is not a vital piece of equipment I decide to wait until it breaks IF it breaks before the finish and fix it then. I have a plan for it which makes me feel good. Other than that, there's salt pretty much everywhere. I notice that the shrouds look pretty rusty too but no real sign of bad corrosion. Other than that, nothing looks like it is about to break which is a relief and I still have two poles in their respective sleeve, with a third one down below as spare.
I still feel like I am floating aimlessly, except that the boat is pointing toward Hawaii. I keep imagining various scenarios of what my life will be after the race. Suffering from a perverse reverse incentive to NOT finish early.
I call Nathan, a friend. I test the phone SMS capabilities. Things look good.
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