It's cold. The actual temperature may not be that bad -- not warm, but
safely above freezing -- but the wind is pretty fierce, and everything is
wet. I'm wearing waterproof socks inside a drysuit inside top-of-the-line
sailing boots, and my feet are still wet. I've been using some heavy rubber
helming gloves with a nice wool (I think) liner, but the liner is wet, and
nothing will make it dry. I have several drips onto my bunk, so my sleeping
bag is wet. Fortunately, it's waterproof, and so far the inside is OK, but
it still gets cold at night. We've started rotations with thirty minutes
out of every ninety below decks to warm up, which was absolutely critical
for night watch and still helpful during the day. Seattle remains a long
way north, and I'm actually worried about my ability to deal with the cold.
Not that there's much option.
We're about the latitude of SF now. It occurs to me that in prior years,
this is as far north as they would have gone, maybe a bit further if they
were following a great circle route.
At least we're making good time, with winds averaging about 25 knots (gusts
regularly in the high 30's and sometimes higher) giving us 250 mile days
for now. There's another low forecast through in a couple of days, and it's
likely to be a big one, but we should be relatively well positioned for it.
Relatively.
2641 nm to go.
******************************************
Sarah Young was buried at sea yesterday. We held a short memorial service
on board. Sean said a few words, and I understand he send something out as
a crew diary as well. It feels odd to say this, since I don't actually know
any of these people, but my thoughts are with her family, her friends, and
her team on Ichorcoal.
No comments:
Post a Comment