Hilton Head Island: from The Great Cabin

 

5:30 pm as I start writing.

I am sitting at Central, sipping from a plastic of New Zealand sauvignon blanc, listening to Bach, and enjoying a cooling breeze blowing in the main hatch.  I walked down an hour ago.  I brought a store bought roast beef sandwich for dinner and a zip lock bag of ice to keep the wine cool.  Decadent.

Today is March 1.  Among my many virtues, I am punctual.  I was working toward having GANNET ready to sail on March 1 and she is.  I reconfigured the interior into sailing mode—formerly known as passage mode, but I am not making a passage—yesterday.  Behind me the forepeak is filled with watertight bags, the asymmetrical, a box of cabernet sauvignon, plastic bottles of ice tea, a 12 pack of cans of Heineken 0% alcohol beer, and two 5 gallon jerry cans of water.  I will be sleeping tonight on the port pipe berth, which is to the right in the above photo.

On all of my voyages after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I have taken cans of something to drink each mid-afternoon.  For a while this was Coke-Cola, but I lost my taste for sweet drinks several decades ago, so I took cans of beer.  This was for the liquid, not the alcohol.  I am not a beer drinker.  Another sailor, Lee, suggested 0 alcohol beer, so when Heineken came out with theirs I tried it and found it acceptable.  We will see if I continue to do so on the upcoming sail.

When I reconfigured the interior yesterday I found it much easier than usual and wondered why until I realized that I was filling only three of the four five gallon water jerry cans.  One is stowed aft under the cockpit, the other three usually on the v-berth.  There is a general rule of a half gallon of fresh water per person per day.  I found during GANNET’s circumnavigation that I normally use .37 of a gallon per day.  As noted I have other liquids as well.  Juice in the morning and something stronger around sunset as well as the mid-afternoon can.  So on this sail, fifteen gallons of water will be more than enough, barring a disaster.

After experiencing how much easier it was to arrange the v-berth stowage without the fourth jerry can, I have decided that if I ever have reason to want to have twenty or more gallons of water on board, I will buy 2.5 gallon collapsible water jugs instead of filling the fourth rigid jerry can which is presently at the condo for hurricane preparation.  I used collapsible water containers on CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE.  They held up well and when emptied took little space.  CT’s pitchpole in the South Pacific was so explosive that they pulled out of their handles and were lost.  The handles are molded into the ones I will now buy rather than wired on as were the ones on CT, and luxurious GANNET has a lid to keep things inside.

Although GANNET is ready, requiring at this moment only for me to top up my day water bottles and fit the outboard, a front is due to pass over the island on Friday and Saturday so I do not expect to sail until Sunday or Monday.

I have charged and reactivated the Yellowbrick and will turn it on unless I forget.  The tracking page is:

https://my.yb.tl/gannet

I have been sipping as I write and my plastic is empty.  Time to refill and wish you well wherever you are.

L’Chaim.