Day 5: Waterworld

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Added: Fri. May 29, 2009 1:54pm
Posted in: Eco-Travel

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This is one in a series of blog posts from Roz during her journey. To follow Roz's adventures, visit http://rozsavage.com.


Only Day 5, but already land seems like a dim and distant memory, and I'm starting to get into the rhythm of life back on board my boat. As I said to Leo Laporte in our podcast this morning, switching between my land-based life and my ocean life is maybe a bit like switching between driving on the right and driving on the left - the more times I make the switch, the easier it gets.

There were a few times in the weeks immediately before my departure when I wondered just how I would cope with the transition. Life on dry land
was eventful, hectic, social, and stimulating. Life on the ocean is, well, none of those things.

But it's ok. And today there were three signs that I'm settling in.

1. When this beautiful bird (see photo) landed on my boat, I quite happily spend half an hour just watching him. The pink and blue of his beak are spookily reminiscent of the color scheme of my website, so I hope his photo blends in in an aesthetically pleasing manner (!). He was busy cleaning his feathers while balancing on the cleat on the bow of my boat (and his sense of balance was much better than mine). I can't imagine taking half an hour to do nothing but watch a bird when on dry land - but here it was the highlight of my day. He hitchhiked for about 45 minutes before spreading his wings and flapping languidly away.

2. I saw a boat not far away - some kind of fishing boat maybe, with a haze of black diesel smoke belching from its engine. It briefly flitted across my mind that they might have some cold drinks - as in refridgerated cold, maybe even a beer! - on board, so maybe I should hail them. But then I decided, on balance, I was in ocean mode, so I wouldn't. So I just carried on rowing, and they carried on belching diesel fumes, and we went our separate ways.

3. I'm getting into my Zen Dog mode. I've got a drinks mat on the wall of my cabin, courtesy of my friend Romy, and it has a picture of a dog chilling out in a little boat. The words say:

Zen Dog

He knows not where he's going
For the ocean will decide
It's not the destination
It's the glory of the ride

And that's how I'm feeling at the moment. I have no idea what the coming weeks and months will bring in the way of excitement, danger, challenges and learning experiences. But whatever happens, it's the glory of the ride. Feel free to remind me I said that if/when I start whingeing about how long I've been out here!

Other stuff:

I recorded my first podcast of Stage 2 with Leo Laporte this morning. Nice to talk with him, as always. Find the podcast on iTunes, called Roz Rows The Pacific (or we might be linking to it from this site too - I will check with Nicole tomorrow).

I'm also uploading my first videocast from the ocean. Trying to coax it up over the painfully slow Iridium connection at the moment. It goes first of all to my wonderful video editor Dawn Pasinski in Lafayette, CA, who will pop it into a video shell that we created while I was still on dry land, to make it into a 2-minute piece. It's a right royal pain uploading these video clips, so I hope you find them worthwhile! Once she's edited it together, it will appear on YouTube, with a geotag on the RozTracker. And we'll probably embed it into a blog as well.

Enjoy!

Thanks to Lorrin Lee for all the lovely food you got for me just before I set out. The sweet potato chips went down very well today! And the apple bananas were yummy, but now, alas, finished.

Crave of the day: anything cold

And finally, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Evan, genius creator of the RozTracker. Thanks, Evan, for all your hard work - it's been a pleasure working with you, and I'm only sorry I can't be there to a) have a birthday drink with you and Alannah, and b) actually see the RozTracker in action!

General report:

Time: 2145 HST
Position: 20 29.387N 158 24.538W
Wind speed: a blissful 2 hours this afternoon of N wind, 5-8kts,
otherwise almost dead calm
Weather: overcast, hot
Sea: varied between choppy and dead calm

Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com

NE to Eerly trade winds should begin to fill in later today. May see some ESE direction for brief periods. A low pressure system north of Hawaii disrupts the high pressure ridge once again so the winds won't be high as usual. When the wind speeds gets to be less than about 5kts, direction is very uncertain. Towards the end of the forecast period winds become more trade like with wind speeds around the 15kt range.

Forecast below is for a SSWerly route at 1.25kts (30nm/day):
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft)
28/1200-28/2100 E-NE 3-10 2-4
28/2100-29/1200 NE-ENE 10-17 3-5
29/1200-30/0000 NE-ESE 7-13 3-4
30/0000-30/1800 ENE-ESE 5-12 3-4
30/1800-31/1800 ENE 4-15 3-4
31/1800-01/1200 ENE-E 10-17 4-6

Sky conditions are mostly cloudy with mid to low level clouds. Isolated to scattered rainshowers.