Day 10: Buff Landed

4/26/2010, Monday, 1700 Zulu, Lat. 24 14.6 N, Long. 090 59.0 W, Day 10

It is a sailor’s delight today so far, i.e. if you are a heavy weather sailor like Terry and I. We just love the challenges posed by the wind and waves interacting with each other. I like to drive the boat and Terry is very good at, and loves, tweaking sails. Together, we make a good team.

It all started last night after dinner at around 2000. We were motoring for most of the afternoon up to dinner time when wind steadily came up from 2 to 20 knots within 30 minutes. I was taking a nap after my usual shower. Terry was single handedly trimming sails, taking the reef in and generally making a big racket and woke me up. Wonder why there is always something happening during my naps? I got up and made my way to the cockpit and saw the sky has blackened and thunder and lightning were appearing on our starboard beam. We were sailing right next to a thunderstorm formed by the earlier low pressure system, and we can confirm that with our radar as we can see there was this white span 3 nm away on our beam. Normally, I would have enjoyed seeing the spectacular light show, but being on a sailboat with a 52 ft. mast acting as a lightning rod, we were both a little leery and were careful not to touch any metallic objects around the boat in case we got hit.

We had a pleasant afternoon before the storm and Terry was asking me what’s for dinner. I told him it’s going to be pork chops. He began to dictate to me what he wants, “How about some glazed apple with cinnamon to go with the chops? And a cucumber salad would be nice, and for a side dish…how about some mashed potatoes.” Captain Bligh is back to his usual appetite and now is telling me what to cook. Yesterday he couldn’t even finish his dinner. I felt like Hop Sing (the cook in Bonanza) and wanted to tell him, “Yea Cap, me cook you foot, won fly lice to go with?”

Anyway, dinner was Cucumber and Red Onion Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette, Pork Chop with SMS Cinnamon Glazed Apple, (there were no cooking sherry on board), and Italian Mashed Potatoes. The Mad Captain was pleased.

If I tell you what was going to happen during dinner, would you all promise not to call me a liar? As this is a true story……while eating dinner, Terry was sitting across from me on the port side and suddenly his mouth dropped open and pointed over my shoulder as if he just saw a ghost. At first I thought he was playing a trick on me and paid him no attention, but he kept pointing as he was gagging. I looked around and thought I saw a ghost as well. It was this tiny yellow feathered bird flying around the stern and landed on the port lifeline, inches away from the same spot P*** had landed four days ago. Terry said, “He came back alive from the deep sea.” It was such a surreal moment and instinctively, I reached for my Nikon but stopped myself before I got to the camera. I do not want to add another charge to my now long rap sheet waiting for me in Galveston.

After both of us calmed down, we realized it was not the same bird. This one had more muscle and must have been working out in the jungle gym. We both agreed to name him Buff. But, this time we did not feed him anything afraid of any personal attachment in case of any untimely demise. He hung around and spent the night, ironically, at the same perch on the wire fruit basket. The next morning, Terry saw Buff fly off which rid me of any unwanted accusation. And there is part 3 of my bird story.

Our 24 hours noon-to-noon run was 103 nm. It was slow due to sailing hard on the nose. Living Water being a full keel boat with 17 tons of gross displacement, just doesn’t like upwind work. We are now 366 nm from Galveston.

Thank you again for your e-mails, Nanci, Geraldine, Linda, Dave. Mary, your sadistic e-mail was painful to read though it was beautifully written with great wit and charm even it was full of P words and changing the lyrics from P*** the Magic Dragon to P*** the Magic Birdie was hilarious. And to Bill Brown, no Terry and I do not have the Bird Flu. Thank you very much.