But not by the Giants. My head. In the last 24 hours I’ve managed to bonk it pretty hard three times. Two drew blood, but not a lot. Just flesh wounds. First one was last night on the foredeck getting the spinnaker ready. Stupid. Got clocked by the staysail boom. Second was below deck. I was getting something in a cabinet and the boat is rolling so hard in the 10 foot seas, I zigged when I should have zagged and clunk, number two (more blood). Third was banging into the preventer while checking lines in the dark. Ouch, ouch, and OUCH!
Gorgeous sunrise today. I can’t remember seeing so many colors. Pink, Rose, Lavender, Orange, Red, Cerulean (ha, look that one up!) and of course the new day’s sky blue.
Sun’s been out all day. We’re not quite in the topical zone, but it’s a lot warmer. Geoff and Jansen have gone to just shorts. Ann, Diane and I are still fully clothed, but we’re thinking tomorrow is likely to bring out the shorts for us. Deep blue sea, 20 gusting to 25 knot wind and 10 foot following seas make for a mesmerizing time. You just can’t take your eyes off the water and the never ending train of waves coming up behind you.
Some of the waves are pretty big. Geoff and Jansen took a wave (or at least part of one), over the stern sometime earlier today.
Jansen: “We got dumped on by a wave”
Geoff: “Spray”
Jansen: ” Well, it was really a LOT of spray”
So I’m working on my story for this seemingly harrowing experience. I tested something like this: “Jansen, knocked out of the boat by the rogue wave was hanging on for dear life, halfway through the lifelines.”, when Geoff corrected me to the following; “Jansen, snoozing on the foredeck, hoisting a Tecate took a few drops of spray on his sunglasses.”
It’s the little things. Speaking of which, our highlight today was a boat crossing. Another HaHa boat came within 100 yards or so and it turned out to be the 52 foot Ketch that was right next to us on the starting line yesterday. A day and a half later, they come out of nowhere (on the radio they said they went 60 miles out last night and they were coming back toward land) and cross right in front of us. There’s little else to do, so an event like this is almost like going out to dinner or a show; “Look a boat, quick we should get dressed up or something”. Ah, but as soon as they cross we’re back to our lazy selves.
Getting ready to cook now. Dinner tonight is Risotto with Spinach and a salad. More importantly it’s not yet fish. We have two lines out and no action. Hoping for a lot better. We have at least a hundred tortillas stored on the boat for all the fish tacos we’re hoping to make.
Signing off with this morning’s radio call sightings (i.e. from other boats reporting): Great White Shark, Dolphins (we also have seen dozens, many of which swam around the boat, leaping out of the water for a great show), whales (one boat reported being “surrounded” by whales), first Tuna caught and an aircraft carrier.
That’s it for now.