Ships Log 07/07/09
Another crappy night!
That low that I thought has stalled off the coast of NC, it actually moved NE, I was a witness to a new Low Pressure system forming right on top of me. It was texbook perfect. Cold front caught up with the warm front, and kicked the crap out of me. At least this time I learned from the night before. I saw it coming all along. It approached from the west. Meanwhile, while I was observing this line of cumulonimbus, and nimbostratus and all those other clouds with with "nimbus" in it, pile up slowly to the west of me, I was already (un)comfortable riding in 20-30kts SW winds that piled up 7-11 foot seas. In that kind of environment, the only heading I could take was NE. Wing-on-wing, with both sails secured in every direction I can think of. This was fine by me, the ride was comfy, and the gulfstream was flowing with me, and it was sort of on the way up the NC coastline.
Just before the cold front hit, I tied the blades of the wind generator and I took off the wisker pole and furled the small working gib all the way in. So I was still doing 6-7kts under triple reefed main. As it hit, the wind at first completely died, there was flashes all around on top of me. And then the rain came. Then the wind slowly picked up from the west, and I decided to let the blades out, and pull out the gib. It was not that bad of a ride accept that the SW swell was colliding with chop from the west and the seas got lumpy. By that time I was exhausted and dosed off for a bit in the cabin. The new ride was ok, the only scary thoughts were the lightning that would do all kinds of squiglly patterns in the sky before hitting water, or dissipating in the clouds.I saw a typical water to clouds discharge that started as one and then branched up into many little ones like a tree branch. Then I also saw two lightning strikes next to each other (like a double barrel) do a loop together in parallel, before dissipating in the water. Or maybe I was hallucinating or seeing double from exhaustion. Don't know, I saw many things last night, and that really caught my eye.
I am just glad I am almost in Beaufort. No more lightning. And I am gonna hang here until the weather in this part of Atlantic stabilizes. And the stable I mean Bermuda High pressure taking over and producing prevailing SW winds all the way to New England. It seems as though that will happen by the weekend. In the meantime, I have few chores to do. Patch up the sail(what else is new), swap back the alternators, .... relax and have few PBRs with the locals. Beaufort is e sailing town. There are always few sailors with funny sea stories in some of those friendly downtown pubs.
That low that I thought has stalled off the coast of NC, it actually moved NE, I was a witness to a new Low Pressure system forming right on top of me. It was texbook perfect. Cold front caught up with the warm front, and kicked the crap out of me. At least this time I learned from the night before. I saw it coming all along. It approached from the west. Meanwhile, while I was observing this line of cumulonimbus, and nimbostratus and all those other clouds with with "nimbus" in it, pile up slowly to the west of me, I was already (un)comfortable riding in 20-30kts SW winds that piled up 7-11 foot seas. In that kind of environment, the only heading I could take was NE. Wing-on-wing, with both sails secured in every direction I can think of. This was fine by me, the ride was comfy, and the gulfstream was flowing with me, and it was sort of on the way up the NC coastline.
Just before the cold front hit, I tied the blades of the wind generator and I took off the wisker pole and furled the small working gib all the way in. So I was still doing 6-7kts under triple reefed main. As it hit, the wind at first completely died, there was flashes all around on top of me. And then the rain came. Then the wind slowly picked up from the west, and I decided to let the blades out, and pull out the gib. It was not that bad of a ride accept that the SW swell was colliding with chop from the west and the seas got lumpy. By that time I was exhausted and dosed off for a bit in the cabin. The new ride was ok, the only scary thoughts were the lightning that would do all kinds of squiglly patterns in the sky before hitting water, or dissipating in the clouds.I saw a typical water to clouds discharge that started as one and then branched up into many little ones like a tree branch. Then I also saw two lightning strikes next to each other (like a double barrel) do a loop together in parallel, before dissipating in the water. Or maybe I was hallucinating or seeing double from exhaustion. Don't know, I saw many things last night, and that really caught my eye.
I am just glad I am almost in Beaufort. No more lightning. And I am gonna hang here until the weather in this part of Atlantic stabilizes. And the stable I mean Bermuda High pressure taking over and producing prevailing SW winds all the way to New England. It seems as though that will happen by the weekend. In the meantime, I have few chores to do. Patch up the sail(what else is new), swap back the alternators, .... relax and have few PBRs with the locals. Beaufort is e sailing town. There are always few sailors with funny sea stories in some of those friendly downtown pubs.
posted by sundowner-cruise at 12:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home