Pleasure cruise

Today, I am feeling well adjusted to life at sea. I'm less grumpy, more active, and more interested in making the most of the voyage. I'm probably also more rested, since I've been sleeping well and a lot. Always a good sign!

I'm also tuned into the key of Petronella, so better able to get what I want out of her. That isn't necessary just the fastest performance. This evening, for instance, right at dinner time, it was blowing like stink, altering our plans for a nice salad, which involves pulling lots of vegetables out of various storage places, cleaning them, cutting them, etc., etc., to the much simpler beef stew with rice. The rice was left over from yesterday's lunch, the stew pre-cooked in one of our beautiful jars. Dinner was as simple as throw rice and stew into a pan, heat, and serve.

While Helena tackled that still-not-simple job in the rolling/pitching galley, I tried to calm the boats motion a bit to make the eating part a little easier.

Since we were beating into 20+ winds and heavy seas, the first thing I tried was easing out our double-reefed main. Just to take some of the pressure off the boat. That helped a bit, but not enough. Then I decided to roll in a bit of our yankee jib. Now, this isn't a huge sail compared to the monster genoas most sloops carry, but it's more than enough when the wind is in the 20s. I rolled about half of it away… too much! Our speed dropped from 7 knots to 2.5 knots! Roll out a bit more… 5-6 knots! Perfect. Enough to power us into wind and waves, but a lot more comfortable than bashing into them at hull speed.

As night fell, I decided to keep that configuration for the night. It makes sleeping easier, no one is stressed, and if the wind picks up, we will be fine. We are tuned for comfort while still making good progress north.

Hey, it's supposed to be a *pleasure* cruise, right?