March 20: Day 8

Yesterday we were cruising along and batteling the wind, as usual. It was coming straight off the stern and moving from side to side. This requires constant sail adjustment and course changes. I was checking our possition on the Chart Plotter when all of the sudden my tiny world did a crazy spin. The boat jibed, the boat whipping from one side of the stern to the other and sending the boom crashing in the other direction, then the boat kept turning until the wind and waves were coming from the opposite direction. The auto pilot was beeping with warning lights flashing and when I got the boat going in the right direction (according to the auto pilot) the wind had done a one-eighty and was coming from the other direction. So were the seas. I looked up at the blank horizon for some clue, but there were clouds all around and it was a circle of sameness as far as the eye could see. I looked down at the most basic and ancient of our instrument, our magnetic compass, and reconfirmed what my gut was telling me. we had done a one-eighty and were headed back to Puerto Vallarta. I corrected my course using the magnetic compass and used the wind and waves as my guide. My heading before the fritz had been 250 degrees. When I headed in that direction my auto pilot was reading my heading at 70 degrees: a compete recipricol heading. In all of the insanity I had managed to call Brett up to the cockpit and once we were safely on course and dealing with the problem we realized that the chart-plotter was okay. It was still reading our course correctly, but the boat compass was reading us backward and telling the chart-plotter that we were flipped. Our little boat on the chart-plotter was reading the bow as the stern and the digital representation of our boat in the GPS world was trundeling along backwards through the digital world. We can work around this. As it stands now our digital boat is going backwards and our auto pilot is on a recipricol heading. So if I have to change course then autopilot course plus two hundred minus twenty equalls my course. I can live with this, and am getting some good practice with recipricol headings.

While all of this is going on I look up to discover that a bird (was that you Bird?) had attempted to land on our wind chicken, the little arrow at the top of the mast that says what direction the wind is coming from, and broken one of the arms off of it. It is now damaged but functioning. The boobie, I’m sure steaming mad at not being able to land on my wind chicken, took a giant crap all over my windows. Gross. I have been entranced by these seafaring companions and have found their flight a welcome distraction from the boredom of my watch. Not anymore.

So, Fearless has been taking shots left and right but is still cruising along. Today was a day of chores: Brett fixed the head gasket that has been non functional for three days (we’ve been using the other head), worked on our “GRIB” files: the weather forcasts that we get while we are at sea have not been able to download and we have had to get our weather from other boats. I cleaned up the crap and did a food inventory and threw out whatever was moldy or toxic. At this point I am seeing why more people do not take to the sea. Its hard. With sleep in 3 hour shifts and a pitching boat below it is importnat to stay on top of all these little chores and they add up fast. Last night it was pure will power that kept me going and slap that bleary haze from my conciousness. It is all so THE SAME our here that there is a tendancy to get complacant. It takes real effort to prepare the food, eat and bath…. All of this becomes a chore. And with things breaking all around us it would be easy to become overwhelmed. But I am not nervous yet. We still have gads of food aboard (despite having to pitch tons of it overboard) and while it may be challenging, tiring and boring at times I have not felt any danger. Just an epic sameness that goes on and on and on. Well there is one spice of varriety: all the stuff that is falling apart around our heads.