Day 5 – Drifting on the Pacific

There’s a subtle but important difference between “drifting” and “adrift”. Drifting sounds peaceful, safe, intentional. Being adrift however, always seems to be used in context with abandonment, mishap and a definite lack of intention. Right now we’re definitely drifting, not adrift. The current is taking us slowly along at about half a knot, fortunately towards the Marquesas and not back to Mexico. There’s not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky, just miles and miles of blue sea around us. It’s REALLY blue. And really clear. When you look down into the depths you catch glimpses of Things way down deep, reflecting the light back up. Maybe fish scales, maybe jelly fish. Dave and Eva are taking turns swimming. I flipped a shiny penny out over the side and watched it glint in the sunlight for a good 30 seconds as it started its long journey to the deep (about 3km deep out here)

Eva and I took in the sails at about 730 this morning as they were flapping and banging around, the boat rolling gently on the small swell. I’ve only got the one set of sails and they need to last a good few thousand miles more, so I’m not having them flog around without providing any propulsion. It was a noisy, slow night – wind coming and going in fitful gusts. Sometimes up to 15 knots, but mostly less than 7, which is on the cusp of being enough to sail, but not so much that it holds the sails in shape. Frustrating – always thinking about whether to surrender and take the sails in, or just to wait a little bit longer for the wind. But frustration is an unnecessary reaction to the situation, and I’m trying to find the right compromise between the detachment from surroundings that’s needed for good rest, and being fully aware for safety and seamanship. Even though I didn’t sleep much the night before last, and even less last night, I’m not tired like I thought I was going to be. So far, conditions have been good, Rafiki has been trucking along just fine, and we’re all getting along well. Still some fresh bananas and avocados left, probably their last day today.

We’ve not run the water maker for a few days, and as it likes to be run regularly to stop bacterial growth on the membrane, today was water making day. It needs a fair bit of electrical power, so we ran the engine for an hour and a half to give the charge needed. No point having the engine running just for charge, so we motored a few miles at the same time. It seems insignificant, but that’s 6 miles closer to where we want to get to! I received a good set of weather faxes using the SW radio this morning. Not much out there in terms of wind. I wonder how long we’ll be bobbing around for… we’ll either get wind, succumb to the temptation of turning on the donkey, or else just keep floating about.