Rain, rain go away...

TIME: 2021/05/26 02:30
LATITUDE: 02-37.49S
LONGITUDE: 151-03.61W
AIMING FOR WAYPOINT: 05N-52W
COURSE (COG): 339T (Currently running away from squall)
BOAT SPEED (SOG): 5.1 kn
WIND SPEED (AWS): 14 kn
WIND ANGLE (AWA): 120 degrees
SEA STATE: 1.5m from E
COMMENTS: It has been a day of overcast skies with lots and lots of rain, alternating between light (10 kn) and strong (25+ kn) winds. Generally have still been able to point north-ish even with a lot of time spent running from squalls.


It has been eight days now since we last got to swim in the clear waters of Tahiti. Eight days since I last felt shampoo in my hair. Eight days since I smelled clean. So in light of this, I have spent much of my time at the helm recently dreaming about the Turkish bath in Finike, Turkey, where we were fortunate to spend four months in 2015/16. The local bath there is incredible. I start my time in the bath by spending as much time as I like lounging in a steamy room just relaxing and chatting with other women. Then when it is my turn, I lie down on a wet, marble surface and a Turkish woman proceeds to remove layers and layers of my skin. The whole time she is tsk-tsking about what a disgrace it is how much dead skin she is sloughing off my body, making a point of showing me the sheer volume of dead skin accumulating. The highlight for me is when she has finished exfoliating every inch of my body, she leaves my face for last...yup, using the very same scrub she used everywhere else. Now that I am 10 lbs lighter, pink as a newborn baby, I sit up where she proceeds to get a tremendous amount of pleasure in shocking me by dousing me with freezing cold water. If anything else, the last six years has helped remove some of the princess qualities of the I-don't-like-camping-girl, but I would give anything right now to be sitting in that bath feeling clean again.

All is well on board, just a little soggy. The temperature which has consistently been 28 degrees celsius since we left Tahiti, today plummeted to 26C!!! No wonder why I was getting goosebumps during the first squall that ran us over this morning. Every day is bringing me closer to having to pull out my foul weather pants. The pants that I believe I only ever wore in Vancouver during sailing lessons back in 2014. We only have another day or two in the Southern Hemisphere and based on this weather, we are receiving an unkind farewell like we did when leaving Tahiti. Here's hoping the sunny skies return once we cross the equator.