Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Off New Caledonia 26 Oct 1900 utc

I decided in the middle of the night to skip New Caledonia. These decisions always seem to happen at night. In the rain. With strong winds. And big seas. This time was no exception. Making landfall, or in this case getting close, always changes the weather. The land disrupts the wind and waves. The visual sight range from Reboot is 3 nm. The clouds over New Caledonia could be seen from 50 miles away. That is how the "iron men in wooden ships" found the islands in the past. I am still close enough to be affected but I can see blue skies ahead.

I have about 800 nm to go to Bundeburg, Australia. Depending on the wind this is 7 to 10 days. I do have charts but no cruising guides. I will deal with that when I arrive. The good news is that I will miss 1 1/2 weeks of election coverage.
It turns out that one of the most difficult products to find in the South Pacific is kitty litter. The vet in Fiji suggested I use chicken feed. That is what they use. It works well with one exception. It is so light that XO tracks it all over the boat. I am constantly cleaning up. So far it has all been  pretty clean litter particles.

I have been taking advantage of the nice ride (up until last night) to get more familiar with my Yamaha PSR S970 keyboard. It is a very complex instrument. I did discover how to preview instrument sounds. This was a big breakthrough as it really is the only way to translate names into sounds. I still don't have a clue how to decode the drum kit / harmony settings. I am finally past my "type A" personality and have started to rtfm. I play music for a while, get frustrated, play with the instrument, get frustrated, go back to playing music. The truth about transits is there is lots of spare time.

Question: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

Answer: "Practice man, practice."

Fair winds and following seas :)

No comments:

Post a Comment