FROM 1-5. Mid Pacific to Heading South

Feb 17, 2005 - 0141hrs UTC

0141hrs 17 Feb 2005 UTC 45’35”S 128’63”W Map Ref 67 3816nm

I made a silly mistake requesting grib files yesterday and well and truly exceeded my daily connect time so this will be a shortie. Also had a minor laptop crash – dont know what happened but discovered after rebooting that Airmail, the sailmail application, seems to have lost all my saved messages from its ‘saved’ folders. Beware, youse all and save stuff to USB memory or cd or the hard drive – not to Airmail folders. So I have lost everything more than about a week old – I hope Steve has backups but he won’t have the early messages sent direct to and from individuals. Damn.

We did a sailchange at about 4am local time – I was off watch and had to climb out of nice warm bag – think hellfire and roses, this is hard, guys – then think again about what the people out here in square riggers and especially Cook’s crew at 71 south had to go through and decide that it’s really soft and cushy by comparison and get just on with it. Laurie Lawrence on pain, perhaps, for a different motivational image. Gordon Liddy even? Anyway, the usual dark and clammy night out there, did sailchange and sat in the cockpit to feel the elements a bit while Pete got out of his party gear below and – behold, a little patch of stars directly above and the gentle glow of what must have been the setting moon lighting the rim of soft cloud to the south. Like sitting in a grey fluffy bowl – piled misty grey darkness all around, black to the north and luminous ceiling. Then think 35 kts blowing across the top with noise and spray and you get close. Worth all the aggravation of getting into party gear and I sat up there till the cloud closed in again. Was then a great excuse to visit Dr Cooper.

Now in 40-50 knots again. Poo. But the sun is out, which may mean we have moved out of the CZ, which in turn may be bad news.

Mike F, where did you spring from and thanks heaps for the crossword – I’ve never started out with an empty grid before and it makes for a nice diversion. Have it mostly worked and most of the answers I think, but need the final breakhrough. Using some laminated graphpaper prepared for sextant sight reduction and non perm felt pen for trial and error grid construction. Will take photo if I get it finished. Kris – don’t know whether I’ve got all your emails – was looking for the last one when I discovered result of crash. Keep em coming tho – don’t think there’s any chance of getting the password from here. Doyles – great cake – thanks – just got to it in time and ate it rather quickly and drank your collective health with every slice. H, E, K & V, G’day – hope all’s well and lotsa.

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