Night Games

We had more 'fun' early hours last night with a frontal boundary that gave us 30kts of wind - for free, no charge! Nancy and I managed to sort it out, but we definitely need during daylight to practice tacking our new staysail rig, so we can do it better in 30 kts in the dark. And it has been dark: no moon, it's a new one, and both moon and stars tend to run and hide when big ol' clouds keep us company for a while. A couple of hours later, at 03 dark-hundred, Jim had a good one on his watch. Motor-sailing along, the engine decided to take a 'work' action and started a slow-down dance. Jim properly shook the skipper out of his bunk, and a few minutes later we had sails set, the motor off, and a fresh fuel filter in the primary Racor: the old one had finally filtered its last microns of sludge and was quite properly giving up. The skipper had expected this, and had a new filter handy - so you might well ask, why did he not change it before we left? And of course the answer is so that Jim could have his "oh no, the engine's giving up" moment. So why does all this happen at night? Who knows, but it always does, and it isn't as if we can sail the ocean blue only in daylight hours. Anyway, after breakfast Jim confessed that he was awake for the Frontal Fiasco (Nancy's log entry after was less dramatic: "Bad News in Dodge City!") and Jim could have sworn as he kept his head down in his bunk that he heard music - an organ playing "Nearer my God to thee..." And then two hours later when the engine spontaneously sputtered he heard a voice proclaiming "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."
The good news is that these experiences are in the bank and neither crew nor ship is the worse for them. And here we are just 140 nm South of Bermuda and guess what? Just this minute Admiral Nancy reports from the helm that we have finally got the wind shift from N to NNW and we are now sailing close to the rhum line: OK, sports fans!
Best to all, Jim, Nancy and John
June 6, 2011 (D Day) 11.25AST 30.03N 64.56W Winds NNW 12kts Seas 3ft Speed 5 to 5.5 close-hauled with full sail.