The Day Started Out Nice

At Sea
29 40.93N 078 01.78 W

Things were fine right up until I posted yesterdays's blog article. We had a nice night making lots of progress. The weather forecast was good. The wind picked up a little and we were making 6 knots under the spinnaker. Then, I heard Libby cry out, "Help! Dick." She never uses those words unless she means it. I sprang up on deck in time to see the spinnaker sail dragging in the water beside the boat.

What happened? The spinnaker sail ripped from top to bottom. It blew out, in sailor's jargon. Jim and I scrambled to get it out of the water and stuffed into a bag. I checked, and the wind was only 17 knots. The sail should not have been over stressed. I have no idea why it failed. Sometime, when I can stretch out the torn shreds on a lawn, I'll try to do an autopsy on the sail.

Anyhow, without the spinnaker, we put out the jib. It seemed that we no sooner had that job done when the wind died almost entirely.

Being out at sea when there is no wind but there are waves is uncomfortable. Worst of all is that the rocking of the boat makes the sails flog back and forth. That causes excessive wear and we can't allow it to continue. Therefore, we soon had all the sails down and were motoring.

At midnight, just as Jim went on deck to take over the watch from Libby, we started having trouble with the motor. The charging current from the alternator keeps cutting out. I checked the belt. It is fine. It could be a bad alternator. Then, the push button that stops the engine failed to work. That never gave trouble before. Hmmm two things at once going wrong. If the alternator fails, we would have to use the Honda generator to keep the batteries charged. I never took out the generator when at sea and I don't ever want to do that.

Anyhow, two good things happened also to brighten the day. We were visited by a pod of dolphins at night. Libby and Jim got to enjoy that. Also, I saw Venus shine for the first time. I didn't know such a thing exists.

I was standing the 0400-0800 watch. I was enjoying the milky way and the meteor shower that seemed to be in progress. Then, I saw Venus rising. I didn't get fooled like yesterday. It came up at the same place and the same time as the day before, so I recognized it right away. However, before rising very far it went behind a cloud. I continued looking and I was amazed to see the cloud glowing, and then Venus reappeared. You know how moon shine causes an obscuring cloud to glow? Well Venus did the same thing. It was proof positive that planets shine much stronger than stars.