Day 14: Hot and Motoring

We're 5 degrees above the equator heading due south. This isn't a heading for the Marquesas, but a heading on the shortest path out of the area of unsettled weather we need to cross to get to the southern trade winds. Today it's 94 degrees Fahrenheit in the cabin with blue sky overhead and dark-bottomed cumulonimbus clouds in every direction to the horizon. Many of these seem perched on black smears that indicate heavy rainfall beneath. There is hardly a breath of wind and we've been motoring slowly (about 3.5 knots, to conserve fuel) the past 24 hours on still-lumpy seas.

Though we'd rather be sailing, it's not all bad. Between sleep we've been cooking (Windy made yogurt and black beans this morning, I made plantains and a cabbage salad this afternoon) and reading (Windy's cracking up over Lost on Planet China by J. Maartn Troost and reading aloud the interesting passages--even suggesting we consider moving to Hong Kong), and writing comic books (this is how the girls spend a lot of their time).

Yesterday afternoon, though the seas were less settled than now, we stopped Del Viento and Windy and I took turns jumping in to bathe. It was heaven. The water temperature and color were both magnificent. We rinsed off with a bit of fresh water from the deck wash and now we both feel like new people.

It kind of feels like ground hog day out here, again and again. We don't leave the boat. We have no social plans with others that differentiate one day from the rest. We have nothing but landfall to look forward to. Sure, we read different books and eat different foods and have different conversations and see different sunsets and read different emails, but all in a very small environment. I looked forward to this passage for just this reason, to see how this astronaut-like existence would feel. It's not unpleasant. None of us are climbing the walls and tempers aren't rising or anything. If I had to use only one word to describe these days, it would be peaceful.

--MR

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