October 11

Rain again. This is becoming just a bit tedious. When one is rowing across the ocean in a very little boat, one must work hard to be content with the weather, because it is rarely agreeable. If it is sunny, you bake. If it is cloudy, your solar panels cannot produce all the power needed for water and communications. If it is windy, any number of things could be wrong. Today, for example, the wind is from the southeast. This will push me to the northwest. I want to go southwest. This is all right. I can quarter the wind and rowing quarter to the swells is actually more comfortable than rowing perpendicular to them. Today the wind is 25 knots. This is the outer edge of what I am able to row in.

The greatest bother is that there are large cross swells coming from the south. These have been running for some days now, but they seem to grow larger each day. In the course of one minute the boat sways as much as 40 degrees to one side (30 degrees seems to be the average) and then 40 degrees to the other as many as thirty times. My brain is beginning to slosh back and forth.

October 12

Had the choice been mine to make, I would have departed the Canary Islands today: Columbus Day. I imagine this might have spared me encounters with low-pressure systems like the one I've been trapped in (or near) this week. I collected enough rainwater today for a nice bucket-bath. I've been told the weather should improve over the course of the next several days, but that the weather could turn ugly again over the weekend with "heavier seas." "Heavier seas" means I'm going to be sitting in the cabin on my backside. I will not think about that right not, it bums me out.

I listened to an audio version of Scott Berg's book on Charles Lindbergh. I must confess to a tinge of jealousy. It took him only 33 and ½ hours to cross the Atlantic. He talked about the "trackless wastes" and the "great solitude." No doubt it is possible to feel the "great solitude" in only 33 and ½ hours. Last summer the "great solitude" for me was the 78 days I went without communications. I feel the "great solitude" less this trip. Each weekend between Saturday evening at 5:30 PM when I speak with Mac McClure and 5:15 PM on Monday when I speak with some member of the American Pearl support team, I feel the great solitude. The difference is that unlike Mr. Lindbergh or Tori Murden last summer, I could pick up a satellite telephone and abandon the great solitude. This is a great choice.

October 13

It is still raining. I think I am getting all the rain that did not fall in Kentucky this summer. Too bad, it will not save any of the lost crops.

The American Pearl and I are settling in. I think about the boat a tremendous amount in cross-seas like this. The little craft gets hammered from side to side with great force. It is a sturdy vessel. There are far fewer leaks than there were last summer. I will grant that by this time in my trip last year the boat had been upside down two or three times. That tends to let water into places you do not want it. A far as I know, the cabin compartments are completely dry. (I check them every Sunday.) One food hatch gets a little water in it because it is close to the intake for my ballast tanks, but all the other food compartments are dry.

The bench that stores the desalinator and the one opposite that stores the stove need attention in this rain. The Bomar Hatches I used in these areas are "weather resistant" not "waterproof." Waterproof hatches are very heavy and these areas get a fair amount of use. So, I opted to use lighter plastic hatches. There is little effort in sponging out these two compartments once a day in the rain.

I wish I could report some extraordinary encounter with wildlife, or some sublime thought that emerged from the "great solitude." I'm just feeling a bit soggy today.

As ever,
Tori