The Waves The Waves

At Sea
N 37 07 W 075 46

The wind is still blowing! It has been nearly perfect wind for this passage. 15-25 knots almost all the time, coming from a relative angle of 160 degrees. We really moved. 297 miles in the first 48 hours. That's a new record for us in 2 days elapsed. Now we are just entering the mouth of the Chesapeake and we still have 7 hours before dark. Cool.

What's so different about sailing off shore compared to in shore. I say the waves. Of course there are the tides, the currents, the salinity and the vastness; but to me all those are small things compared to the waves. The waves are what makes the boat rock and roll. I measured it last night, we rolled -30 to 50 degrees. That's a lot and the ride down below can be wild. Right now, as I blog, it is a little calmer and we roll only -10 to 20 degrees.

It is notoriously difficult to estimate the height of waves from the deck of a small boat. I'm no expert. However, I guess that the waves on this trip averaged 5-8 feet with occasional outliers up to 12-14 feet.

The color of the waves and the water varies a lot. Last week we were trying to explain to Nancy about the deep deep wonderful blue of the Gulf Stream. I guess that's why they call it blue water sailing. In the Keys and in the Bahamas, the water is often turquoise in color. Yesterday, the water out at sea, but still over the continental shelf was grey-black. Today, closer in to shore it became gray-green. Green water is a bad thing to see. When a wave looms over your head and is about
to crash down on you, you can see sunlight through the wave and the water looks green. White water means surf, or a really nasty storm, or rapids. We don't want to see any of those while traveling.

I invented a new phrase this morning. How many ways can the jib sheet foul? Let me count the ways.

It fouls on the cleats, on the windlass, on the stay sail, on the chain plate turnbuckles, and on the boat hook, just to mention a few.