Monday, June 2, 2014

June 2 Position Report

6/2/14 Wandering Dolphin POS

GMT 1600
16 19.17N 139 06.91W

COG 285T
SOG 6.5kts
DMG 168 nautical miles
DTG 941 nautical miles

Wind: ENE 20-25
Temp: 83f
Pressure: 29.70
Sky: overcast
Seas: 8-10ft NE
Sails: double reefed main, deep reefed jib, no stays'l.

Just to let you all know, the position reports might be posted a little late for the next few days because our friend Mike who does our shore stuff will be on a business trip.  We just wanted to let everyone know so no one panics and thinks something might be wrong out here.

We are on day four of this cold front and it's actually growing on me.  It really is nice to pull a blanket over yourself to sleep and I don't miss the sticky, cloying feel of sweat constantly on my skin.  The grey sea and sky has a beauty all it's own and I sometimes forget the time and find I have been staring at it for an hour or more.  The confused seas have moderated so the boat is pretty comfortable now and that helps a lot.

We spent some time talking about why everyone is soooooo eager to be ashore now.  It is kind of interesting actually because most of our time out here we lay around like Romans, eating our meals prone with nothing better to do than amuse ourselves.  I have read at least fifteen books this month (my favorites have been "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak and the Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte) we have all watched old seasons of "Survivor" and "Rome" that I had stored on an old iPod.  We play games.  Yesterday Becky and I actually battled each other on Halo on the XBox while the kids cheered on their favorite parent... (Mom got all the cheers and I got, "Oh. .. Dad, that wasn't cool!") I have tried in vain to catch more fish.  We are convinced there must be a big shark following us (we named her Bertha) who has been eating all the fish that get on my lines.  I lost my very last lure yesterday, again bitten right through a high test steel leader.  I spend some time fixing little things but there really has not been as much of that as I anticipated.  We spend a little time everyday cleaning up the boat and Beck spends more time than she'd like trying to make tasty meals out of canned provisions.  But really life isn't bad at all so why this intense longing for land?  I think it has nothing to do with land but for the familiar.  One time I took a group of boys on a month long backpacking trip in Wyoming and we were VERY remote, far off the trails, and limited in our food and communications. In a lot of ways that trip was far more remote than this one and we found these same intense desires to be OUT.  
So we spend time every day just daydreaming about food and hikes in Hawaii, and swimming in waterfalls.
Messages:
Jim V.  Thanks for the story this morning!
Aline:   Very cool to hear about your offshore trip, tell us more!
Brent G: answer,   Wandering Dolphin was named by its original owners while it was actually being built in Nova Scotia.  There is a little bronze plaque and an engraved Bible in the salon that was presented to the boat by the boat builders.  We are the third owners of the boat and when we saw the plaque and the Bible we decided not to mess with the name.  We have  now owned the boat longer than any of the other owners and have rebuilt her from the ground up and we have all grown to love the name, not only do we all have a special place in our hearts for dolphins, it seems that they do for us as well.  In our minds we think of ourselves as adopted dolphins.  It's pretty cool to be making this long voyage and actually "Wandering."  When you live on a boat you become the boats name, your identity to other cruisers is that boat so we have been known for years now as "The Wandering Dolphins". The kids have always been called "the little dolphins".  It has become an identity for us and we are happy to have made it our own.

Well, it's time to get this sent off and wake up my wife.  I am going to BEG for cinnamon rolls!

Captain Tofer

No comments:

Post a Comment