A lovely spring day. Not for sailing—there was little wind—but just to be alive and on the water, or even the land, which I visited twice.
I’ve been doing minor boat chores. This morning I oiled GANNET’s small amount of wood, including the tiller, then rowed ashore and walked up the Opua hill.
I wore my Apple watch, but it really isn’t up to the real versus the artificial world.
In the activities app there is ‘rower’ not rowing, ‘stair steeper’ not stair climbing. The watch is created by and largely for those who work in offices and for whom physical activity is not natural. The watch failed to understand that walking in sand on North Carolina’s Outer Banks is more strenuous, though slower, than walking on Evanston’s flat sidewalks. Today it failed to know that climbing up Opua Hill is also different, as is coming down.
It did tell me that I made it up in 8 minutes and 55 seconds. Not bad. Particularly since I haven’t been walking much. But it said I used 15 calories which is a gross underestimate.
I was surprised that the climb was relatively easy. I was certainly huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top, but I kept moving right along.
The watch gave me no credit at all for walking back down, which took over 10 minutes. As I have noted before I take smaller steps going down than up and I wasn’t pushing hard.
I showered, bought a smoked chicken and brie sandwich at the General Store and rowed back out to GANNET, where I ate on deck in order to give the oiled floorboards more time to dry.
The General Store makes pizza from 4 to 7 several nights a week. When I was climbing Opua Hill I had to take an extra notch in my belt to keep my Levis from falling down, so I decided I needed a pizza and rowed in at 5, ordered, walked to the Cruising Club where I had a gin and tonic with the luxury of ice while waiting, returned for the pizza and a bottle of red wine, rowed back to GANNET, where I again ate on deck, accompanied by Vangelis’s THEMES in stereo on the Megabooms, while watching the start of the Friday night race.
It happens that several people this week have told me, nicely, that I am mad. But consider.
------
The lead photo was a foggy morning yesterday or the day before.
This was sunset at Paradise Bay a week ago. A resemblance of light, but not the same.
The last entry had a photo of Cape Brett and Piercy Island on my way to Whangamumu. This is in very different light on the way back.
And here is a photo showing the running backstay passing through the new folding pad eye. You can also see where the old jam cleat was removed.
Luis in Lisbon, Portugal, noticed in a photo that when in use the running backstays go through blocks on sliding cars on a genoa track and asked why. The answer is that the track was on GANNET when I bought her, doesn’t leak, and so I’ve left it. At the forward end of that track I’ve put sliding cleats for spring lines and for the jib and gennaker furling lines, though I don’t slide them either. The track has just been an existing base. However, since Luis asked the question, I’ve been eyeing those tracks. What can be removed ought to be. I could get rid of all but the forward few inches of the tracks by installing u-bolts for the running backstay blocks.
I might. I’m still thinking about it.
———
As I have noted here before, I have googled this and come up with both Wellington and Perth/Fremantle, Australia as the ‘second windiest city’ in the world, but never have been able to discover the first.
Wellington has a very good case.
So does Perth, which isn’t even mentioned in the article.
Chicago isn’t even the windiest city in the U.S. Boston is. And the average isn’t all that high.
Most boats are designed to sail best in less than fifteen knots of wind because mostly that is what there is.
Here is the current wind map of the United States. Note the average speed.
It is night time there; but on most days the average is not much higher.
