Day 86 - Past Staten Island

I woke up to find the boat heading ENE. Outside it was cloudy and drizzly and the wind was at about 10 knots over a calm sea. I decided to tack but there was not enough drive to cross the wind so I "wore ship" and gybed to the other tack. I found that for the second consecutive morning I had called the wrong shot and put the boat back on her original tack, harder to the wind, and with more headsail. This raised the apparent wind to 12 knots and soon we were making close to 3 knots to the NE.

Back at the chart table I finally got my navigation brain into gear. Ever since the Horn my goal had been to get around the NE corner of Staten Island and head north. Suddenly I thought "Wait a minute. After the gales you've been through you decided that you no longer had concerns about passing to the east of the Falklands." I zoomed out the laptop chart and could see that the NE course since the Horn had been fine all along. The grib file prediction indicated favorable and moderate winds for the next 24 hours so I was optimistic about making steady if not spectacularly fast progress.

We were on a port tack which in light of the damaged D1 shroud was now the weak side. It would be on a day like today, 10 knot breeze and calm sea but without the rain, that I would swap out the shroud. I would put the boat on the starboard tack and I had already worked out most of the other details in my head. But I first needed a quiet day or two to get some rest. After the excitement of the rounding and the hard previous day I was a tired old sea dog. I was hoping that this day would be one of those rest days.

Two hours later I woke up and had to scramble. The wind had backed and risen to 18 knots. I had a lo,t of headsail out and rolled half of it in then moved the sheet car forward on the track. Jeff could not cope and had us on a beam reach but that was fine because the wind had backed. I adjusted the sails and Jeff and the excitement was over. We were managing to do over 3 knots and I would adjust the sail to maintain that speed and no more. Just before returning to the cabin I looked forward and saw land. It appeared to be tops of mountains. Down below I saw that Staten Island was 36 miles away. Zooming in with the Google Earth images of the laptop navigation software I could see mountains, with a few patches of snow.W

At noon our position was 55S08, 063W46, for a n-n distance of 71 miles in the direction 045T. The distance covered was not large because of the light winds but it had been from a good direction giving us an excellent course. At noon the wind was up to 24 knots and would remain so until midnight. I wound he headsail right in to minimize stress on both the sail and the ailing shroud, and we were making about 3.5 knots. Staten Island lay 30 miles to the north and we were an a good course to pass it to the east. This was the last position that I expected to plot on the paper chart that ended at 063W. After this it would be back to electronic charts exclusively.

During the engine run I attended to both still cameras. For several days I had been unhappy with the state of their carry bags. They both felt damp and clammy even after sessions drying them in front of the heater. So today I spent 30 minutes kneeling in front of the heater with both cameras in had, rotating them as the hot dry air blew over them. Then I got two clean Ziploc bags and gave them a dose of hot air too. The I got two plastic food containers, rinsed them in fresh water, then dried them too in front of the heater. So both cameras are now in carefully sealed Ziploc bags inside plastic containers into which I put grains of rice which Stephen tells me can soak up moisture. I'll soak the camera bags in fresh water at first opportunity to make sure that there is no salt in them. The video camera was OK because it always travels in its own plastic container.

Then I attended to the poor computer mouse. On a port tack when the boat is leaning to the right the mouse keeps falling off the task and onto the floor because I keep forgetting to put it in the shelf to the left of the laptop when I do not have it in my hand. It must be a tough mouse because it is still working. Nevertheless I decided not to push my luck and have now tied the mouse by its cable to the shelf above the desk with a piece of shock cord. The idea is that when the mouse goes over the side it will be held in mid air by the shock cord.

There have been many sea birds in the neighborhood of the Horn and this area near the east end of Staten Island is teeming with them. They tend to be relatively large, undoubtedly a mixture of albatrosses and the larger petrels with a few shearwaters. One common visitor that I have managed to identify using the marvelous book on sea birds that Brenda left on the boat is the black-browed albatross. Yesterday morning the boat was visited by a group of 6 or 8 unusually small birds. From the distinctive white marks on their backs I would say that they were one of the "white rumped" storm petrel group, possibly Wilson's storm petrel. I'm pretty sure that I've seen some sooty shearwaters too. Unfortunately I have not seen any dolphins or whales yet, but I minimize my time on deck for safety and comfort reasons.

By the end of the afternoon we were clear of Staten Island which we had passed 5 miles off the coast, headed NE with the southern edge of the Falklands only 200 miles away. It was my intention to pass east of the islands, not far from the coast.

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