Sailing Through the Variable Winds

Passage Notes (continued)

Sunday, May 9, 2004 (Day 16 of the Easter Island Passage)

When I went to relieve Marcie at 8:00 a.m., she was below. Turns out, it had been raining for some time, and not the light shower you can ride out in the cockpit, but a steady heavy rain that necessitated taking refuge below. We had been motoring for a while because it was practically calm outside. While on watch, I would pop my head into the cockpit every now and then to take a look around, but all you could see was rain. The bimini seems to leak like a sieve, it's almost like it's not there; the cloth is porous even though Marcie had sprayed it with waterproofing. After a while I went out with my rain jacket to tend to things, but my shorts got annoyingly wet so from now on I'll have to wear the rain pants, too. These are the only decent shorts I have left and if they get wet, I'll have to wear wet pants. While it was raining, I hung my other shorts on the lifeline in hopes that the rain would wash out some of the salt and dirt. But wouldn't you know it, just after I hung them out, it stopped raining.

A close-up of raindrops splashing into the ocean—fresh water meets salt water.		Water droplets beaded up on the varnished surface of a cockpit seat.