Going nowhere, slowly at great expense.

Susan putting together the drogue. It’s tedious and chatting can distract one to the point of making mistakes. Since this is a lifesaving item it’s best to concentrate on the task. We always look over what we’ve done to make sure it’s right. I get way more tired of doing it. Susan is a trooper.

A tongue in cheek book that Andrew gave Susan and me has already on the boat defines sailing as “the fine art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.” This is proving very true since our departure from lovely Mopelia. Also, from the book is the definition of course: the direction in which a skipper wishes to steer his boat and from which the wind is blowing. This is also proving true.

Since you cannot sail directly into the wind we cannot go to Roratonga, nor to Aitutaki both in the Cooks. So we are going along as close to the wind as we can, beating. The popularity of this Coconut Milk Run is the easy downwind passages. Ha. Beating is difficult and makes everything you do on the boat hard. Just getting to the head and taking care of things in there is a 15 minute deal.

Cooking becomes quite fun when you’re bouncing around the galley. Luckily, the stove is gimballed. This means that it sways and stays mostly level side to side. It’s very odd to watch. Still, we had mushroom and pepperoni pizza for lunch yesterday and chili with corn muffins for dinner. I have to keep us fed. The pizza dough came as a box mix from Uturoa and was nice. It certainly was more of a flaky French dough than the traditional Italian. There’s also a strap that clips up to lean against while cooking. It really does help.

I’ve pretty much got my sea legs, although too much time reading or here on the computer makes me a little dizzy. Nausea has passed completely. I just noticed that on starboard (right) side out the forward port I can see below the water when we crash through certain waves. It’s not there all the time, but occasionally. It’s cool, but it means we’re beating.

We should make it to Aitutaki sometime tomorrow morning, motoring the last way to get the course we need, unless the wind shifts. Our weather reports say it will, but they’re not very accurate.

We’ve been putting together our drogue and it’s almost done. It’s tedious, but keeps your hands busy while up in the cockpit with nothing to do. We’re not quite repeating stories yet, but I’m sure we will before this is all over. I told Susan I think she got me here on false pretenses. Easy light tradewind sailing downwind. Right!