Another Beautiful Day on the Pacific

As I sit and write this we are sailing at 6.5 knots in exactly the right direction. The seas are flat, the sky clear, and the temperature perfectly comfortable for shorts and a t-shirt. Today is another beautiful day in the long string of warm, clear, gentle days that we have enjoyed on this passage. I will be sure to keep this passage in mind the next time I am freezing my butt off, beating against an uncomfortable chop, and wondering why I go cruising at all. At least for me, those days are much more numerous than the nice ones when I look back at the days that I have spent on the water in my lifetime. In fact, this entire passage has been made up of “ten percent” days–those really nice ones that convince me that it isn’t completely crazy to keep going back out to sea. I am pretty sure at this point that a full ninety percent of the time that I am sailing the weather is contrary, dreary, or uncomfortable for one reason or another, including flat calms and wilting heat. This is probably not everyone’s experience, but I have spent a lot of time sailing out of season, on the shoulders of the good seasons, and in places where the weather just isn’t going to be ideal the majority of the time. Why do I do that? I am not quite sure myself. It ensures plenty of room in the anchorages that I visit, at least. I guess if I were seeking comfort I would have kept my full-time job and cushy sofa rather than trading them for uncertain income and a thin piece of foam set on plywood sheltered by a leaky deck. Even on the best of days out here I can’t leave my cup of tea unsupervised if I h ave set it on a on a flat surface and I probably have not enjoyed the luxury of a shower in recent memory. Back to how things are out here on S/V Starlight, currently two hundred miles from Nuku Hiva, I am very happy with the speed that we have made on this leg so far. We have done as well as I could have expected for this boat, especially loaded the way she is. Nobody has been seasick, and everyone has enjoyed the freedom from frequent sail trimming and reefing. Except for rolling in a little of the genoa a couple of times to keep it from slatting, and occasionally making a small tweak here and there, we haven’t made any sail changes since leaving the Galapagos.