More Crappy Days in Paradise!

SHIP'S LOG:

Sunday turned out to be a truly crappy day. Torrential rains and storm-force winds and small craft warning all contributed to a day that was better spent inside than out. The winds came out of the East, sometimes the north east and sometimes dead East, but mostly from the southeast with a nice long fetch up the river. This guaranteed lots of nice rolly waves and a lot of pitching and yawing about on the mooring. And I had chili for lunch.

The rain by itself would have been bad enough, but matched with the win and the waves, it was not a nice day or night. While the awnings and dodger kept the rain out of the cockpit and the newly re-caulked salon hatch was dry as a bone, the shelf behind the starboard settee got wet. How I don't know. Di didn't seem to come from the cabinets behind as they were dry. It didn't seem to come from the port lights above as the area below the port lights was dry. It couldn't come from below as water doesn't run uphill even on a boat! The only source I can see is that gremlins pour a bottle of water on the shelf while I was asleep!

Sleeping last night was too bad. The rolling was actually comforting and sleep inducing. The nosiest part was the wind generator which produces not just electricity but one hell of a whine when the wind gets up over 20 knots, where it spent a good deal of last night. The wind generator has a self braking device built in so that it won't burn out or go so fast as to shake itself apart. It sounds like a semi downshifting when it kicks in which it seemed to do about every 15 minutes or so. The good thing was that it produced so much juice that it ran the batteries back to "even," according to the battery monitor. So they should be in good shape. Even watching two movies last night on the computer didn't serious deplete the house bank and by this morning, everything was up to snuff. As they say it is an ill wind that blows no one no good!


MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

When you are trying get to sleep at night on a boat in a storm, you spend a lot of time trying to identify all the sounds you hear and what is making them.Every boat has lots of noise makers and ABISHAG is no exception. There are the standard noises I always hear - the rattle of the steering vain, the whine of the wind generator, the sound of the wind in the shrouds, the slapping of halyards - and I expect to hear them. And when I don't or I hear a new sound, I have to try and figure out what it means and whether or not it is something that I need to deal with. Somethings you just have to deal with, like a line that has loosened and is causing a block to bang and scrape irregularly. Let alone, it will eventually drive you off the deep end, so I get up and fix it. Somethings you don't have the skill or the tools or inspiration to fix right then unless it will sink the boat or do expensive damage. There is an amazing amount of stuff that you can let go and it is definitely a better idea than trying to fix it in the dark.

Another day or two of this stuff and then it will be over. Hopefully, we will get back to hazy, hot and humid!