Drinking the Ocean, soaking the sunshine and catching the wind….
written sometime towards the end of May, 2014
We have been at sea for three weeks now. In that time the only other living things we have seen are the albatrosses, the petrels, and the tropic birds along with the explosion of dolphins waving goodbye to us as we left New Zealand.
On board, Geoff, Martin and Sally continue to try to keep Maslow’s Hierarchy in balance. Giving safety, shelter, water, food, priority, and then, if time permits, moving on to hygiene, social interaction amongst the three of us on board. Many of the other parts of his famous pyramid are distant memories, or perhaps dreams. With few outside stimuli, we are reduced to living in our own small world, surrounded by only our immediate problems and, indeed, these seem to take up all but every waking moment. We have been thousands of miles from any other person for a while now.
In 2,400 nautical miles of ocean there is a prodigious amount of water passing by and underneath us. The current color is almost impossible to describe — it is so clear and yet so deeply indigo blue. Nights are alternately supremely peaceful and almost mystic, or horrific and diabolical.
Some amazing aspects of even the relatively little technology we have aboard keep us forever in good stead. Thanks to a fairly simple “water maker” we are able to use reverse-osmosis and do, actually, end up drinking the water from the ocean around us. Because the system is so good, it is able to filter out, not only the salt, but the Albatross (and other) poop, and also any bacteria and even viruses.
In addition to the water-maker, which does need a certain amount of power to run each day, we have the ability to “soak up the sun” using our two solar panels. Between them and the wind generator we are able to produce more than enough of our own electricity to power not only the water maker, but also the single side band radio which is how we transmit our daily position to those watching us.
Since we tend to not trust electronics on a boat, we don’t have an auto-pilot to steer the boat. We use a simple servo pendulum wind vane (ours is a “Monitor”) which keeps GRACE on course vis-a-vis the apparent wind. This tireless piece of equipment is easily one of the most important aboard.
In a passage with weather as violent as this, there are inevitable breakdowns and losses. Almost within the first 24 hours, Martin's watch stopped working. Sounds like a small thing, but it can be hard to keep to a watch schedule without one. Next to go, for no reason we can discern (close to electrical storms? but we didn’t think we had a strike aboard), the Garmin GPS and chart plotter packed up. Next to go was the laptop used for communications via the SSB. That was killed instantly when a large wave unexpectedly slammed the port beam, jumped up into the cockpit and then with astonishing accuracy, fell right on top of the computer sitting down below at the Nav Station. We’ve had some injuries too, but none that required me to pull out the injectable heavy weights. And anyway, we are three tough cookies…
Back up plans: It is not enough to have the right equipment aboard on a trip such as this, you have to have contingencies and think about them well in advance. Thus, much of the past 6 months have been spent in extensive and expensive re-fit of GRACE. While we had already put all computers, hand held GPS, VHS radio and SAT phone into the oven when we were passing the electrical storms, the GPS is hard wired into the bulkhead and not easily removed. However, we do have paper charts, a hand held GPS, and electronic charts on (good thing…) both computers.
This passage we have also found that communication with special people elsewhere in the world, albeit brief, has made the hard parts a bit easier. Out here you are really and truly alone, and the combination of high stress, huge bursts of intense physical activity, elusive sleep and in conditions that sometimes feel like we are in a tiny capsule being shaken erratically in James Bond’s martini shaker by a palsied bartender, can make you feel lost and forgotten and not a small bit insane. Given the expanse of the ocean and sky and the vagaries of Mother Nature, you can feel very tiny and irrelevant indeed. The people far away may not be able to help in any palpable way, but the connections are life saving and life affirming.
When those who read this think next of the ocean or of the sun or of the wind, please think of us and how they keep us alive and heading towards our destination.
Shaken, not stirred…. on to Tahiti!
