LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 06:
February 1, 2000
0604 Sunrise
0730 The wind has held steady without any significant change in direction or
force since last evening. The mainsail remains double reefed and the dual jib is
partially rolled up. The Staysail jib remains in use. The boat is close hauled
on starboard tack making about 5 kts and still falling short of fetching the
next waypoint by some 20-30 degrees. She is pressed down with the lee rail at
the water's edge. Periodically burying her bow in the waves, water rolls over
the bow and there is a continuous stream running inside the bulwark along the
lee deck to the scuppers. Periodically sea spray wets down the entire boat
topside; anything that isn't kept constantly wet on deck is encrusted in salt
from the
spray. No place in the cockpit stays dry. The long awaited cold frontal passage
has not occurred, as the front seems to be stalling out. Air temperature this
morning is 72 degrees. The water temperature is 70.
0930 The slow approach of the mild cold front is now in evidence as the wind has
veered into the SW. With the clockwise change in the wind the boat also has
turned to the starboard under the steering control of the Monitor Wind Vane. She
has turned just enough so she is now on course to waypoint 6.
1100 The weather fax continues to spew out weather charts and text forecasts.
Daytime Nighttime. Whenever I have programmed a scheduled broadcast to be
copied, it prints it out. Periodically I pull out the scissors, separate the
charts and arrange them in multi-paged folders so that I can make sense of them.
When it is not copying information for me the weather fax goes into sort of a
sleep mode to conserve power. The machine is new to me and to the boat. I am
already wondering how I ever managed without it. It has an additional optional
feature that I had installed, whereby it will give me NAVTEX messages. Basically
these are like current Notices to Mariners about things that are important
regarding navigation and safety in a particular area. Fortunately I am able to
be selective
about what material I receive and what stations I receive it from. When I first
turned this thing on and let it go 24 hours a day I was getting information on
missing buoys and the like anywhere from New Orleans to Halifax. I was even
getting a report for the Canadian Maritime Provinces in French. The other day I
took control of the situation and deselected all the NAVTEX transmitter sites
except Bermuda and San Juan. Today I dropped Bermuda. I will stick with just San
Juan for the NAVTEX data from now until I start home from the Caribbean in late
March; that station will cover the area of interest until then. The weather
faxes are coming in from a site in Boston and one in Louisiana. Once I am in the
Caribbean, I will drop the Boston station, as Louisiana will provide everything
I'll need while there. There is a third western Atlantic station in Halifax,
Nova Scotia that transmits weather data for the North Atlantic area. When I take
the boat into Canada next summer I will tune to that station, but probably
continue receiving selective charts from the other two stations as hurricane
activity resumes.
1300 I bailed out the propane locker and did a soap bubble/brush check on all
the connections and the hose to see if I could spot a leak. I found none. I did
find I was able to tighten the valve on the spare propane bottle slightly. Maybe
that is where I was picking up the smell yesterday. I'll give it a sniff check
every now and then to see if the smell persists. So far I am coming up negative.
1654 Sunset
2000 Position: 28-34N 063-40W. This is the same latitude as Cape Canaveral some
900 NM east of the Cape. The wind appears to have abated slightly over the last
hour to SW 17-20.
END OF LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 06
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