Reprieve

Reprieve

After a week of upwind work in winds from 4 to 34 knots against mixed swell and wind wave from 4 to 14 feet, we are finally granted a reprieve. We are no longer pitching and diving into head seas with the bow throwing sheets of spray as far back as the cockpit. The lee scuppers are dry and we roll languidly in a prodigious swell kicked up by Tropical Cyclone Herold hundreds of miles away to our Northeast.

It is the sort of swell you read about in novels, or watch and hear about in classic movies. Bogart saying “I dunno sweetheart, but you better get below and find that slicker you said you brought along. There’s trouble headed our way. These here waves ain’t never wrong!”

I’ve always wanted to be at sea when they were about. Here I am and for the most part, they’re somewhat anticlimactic. Or perhaps I had just expected too much. Regardless, we are definitely playing to their tune as there is no hope of going east and against them until some solid breeze arrives. Until that breeze arrives, we wait

For me, the reprieve has been more than welcome. Like a hockey player between Stanley Cup playoff rounds, I’ve been nursing injuries back to health:
  Back:  60%
  Neck: 30%
  Knee: 10%

Added up, you get 100%. Shore Team, this is SV Seaburban. We are 100% green and good to go!

All that must be done is done. The path east is no longer barred closed: We wait for the forecasted Southerly winds to fill in so that we may be on our home.

Follow my tracks in real-time:
https://bit.ly/svseaburban