One advantage about being enclosed in a small space with your family is that they are forced to listen to what you have to say, because there is nowhere else to go. It is the perfect time to homeschool the less popular subjects.
Can you hear it?
Across the waves, through the salt air, above the sargasso, beneath the clouds An unearthly sound undulates through the nautical miles
Until it generates a swell in the tympanum
It’s poetry for boatschool today
Emily Dickinson is offshore
Can you hear the children crying?
Nothing is better for nerds than a captive audience.
Boat stuff: 166 nm in 24 hours. Winds are variable, between 12 and 22 kts true, and the seas are bigger, probably 6-8 feet. We gibed the spinnaker today because the wind is clocking south on us, and we are on a port tack for the first time this trip. “Gibing” is a euphemism for taking down the spinnaker, moving all of the blocks and lines, and putting it back up again in the course of thirty minutes. All systems are good, and Greg finally diagnosed an intermittent sproinging sound inside the mast as the rubbing of the spinnaker halyard against the lip of an exit port. Also, we encountered our first tanker in several days, and the bored, friendly captain called us and he and Greg talked politics for 30 minutes. Americans can’t escape that! We are starting to see some rainshowers at night, but the winds have behaved so far. It looks like Steven Seagull has moved on. “Sad as the sea-bird is, when going Forth alone, He hears the winds cry to the waters’ Monotone.” Hey, a blog gives one a captive audience too! Ha!
Leave a Reply