August 27, 2012 In the middle of nowhere

We must make quite a sight, if anyone could see us, out on the boat, naked, screaming at the top of our lungs, "Bad Booby, Bad Booby!!" to the very heavy bird trying to land on our mast head.  And Barry has a new horn which he honked just for good measure.  From Barry: Our concern is due to our having a delicate plastic weathervane that we can see from the cockpit at the back of the mast head and another weather vane with even more delicate plastic anemometer cups for the wind instruments projecting in front of the mast head.  If a large bird lands, something will usually get broken.  I installed a thin anti-roosting wire connecting the two to discourage birds from roosting on the mast head.  Usually, the boobies circle again and again, trying to figure out how to land in spite of the wire and eventually will give up and go away. The wire and our yelling have been successful in the past but this bird was going to land despite the wire.  However, because of the noise, it eventually gave up and left, to our relief.

The last couple of days have been eventful.  Adding to it, the shackle pin holding the mainsheet to the traveler car on the deck fell out, letting the boom swing forward out of control.  Fortunately, the wind was light, the damage nil, and we have a spare shackle of the correct size and shape.  I went forward, attached another line to the middle of the boom and brought the other end back to the cockpit.  I used a winch to pull the boom back enough to re-attach the mainsheet tackle to the traveler car.  We use seizing wire to prevent the shackle pins from unscrewing themselves.  There are two shackles and the broken remains of the wire were on both.  This will have to be checked more often in the future.  We are fortunate that this happened with only about 8 knots of wind.  Had it happened two days ago with over 20 knots of wind, there would have been major damage to the boom and/or mast rigging wires.  Keep in mind that the force of the wind goes up as the square of the velocity.  We dodged the bullet this time.

To be precise, if we were to turn L 90 degrees, the next thing we would come to would be Antarctica 3100 miles to the S. If we were to turn R 90 degrees, we would come to Hawaii 2000 miles to the N. If we didn't stop at Suwarrow, the next stop directly W would be the Solomon Islands in 2400 miles, then Papua New Guinea and directly E behind us is Peru at 4500 miles.  Basically, in the middle of nowhere.

Position :  13 27.44' S, 156 04.36' W

Speed : 4.8 knots,  Course : 277 degree