Been awhile!! We make ya nervous!? If it's any consolation, we worried about you!
As it turns out, once you run out of your accredited allotment of online time, satellite companies make it delightful for you to reconnect -- they won't even allow you to call and get help! In fact, they mentioned needing to provide them with a written request. I felt like asking the lady if she'd accept it being sent by whale mail? Maybe I could corral a messenger frigate bird? Anyhow, thanks to the tag team of master sleuths that got us back up and running (you know who you are)!
Here's another day until, perhaps, I can catch us all up to speed.
I've come to understand that when last we spoke, I made a gross mistake -- you never talk about converting your cabin into a stitching studio unless it is to be so! It had been a beautiful day at sea the day before -- calm, sunny and a steady keel. Bill and Ed had begun one of their many excellent adventures repairing a sail car that had stuck. No sooner than I patched our gennaker, I dragged our jib inside to repair its four running seams. When we settled down that evening to celebrate an easy and productive day, I should have known something was brewing when, perusing through my book, the Arts of the Sailor, I found the following befitting: "I know of no better way to gain proficiency in the arts of the sailor than in the making of various articles of ships gear. It adds to your experience, produces something useful and flatters your ego, for it is human nature to take immeasurable pride in things you have made yourself."
The sun rose and with it, we thought, the gennaker. We were all in proper order, the sail unfurling, when all of a sudden it became apparent that the spinnaker halyard cleat had been left wide open. You should have seen it! With the way the wind blew that day, boy did that puppy FLY. It took all of 4 seconds for that beautiful sail to pull out some 30 feet in the air and plummet straight into the water in front of us. Given the pressure that held it by the sheets and the forward momentum of the boat, it spread evenly beneath the port hull and with a couple of creeks and groans brought good ol' L'Obby to a dead halt. What once was before us, swept its way dead below, and popped out starboard stern. Goodness, it felt like forever. Clamoring to release it from beneath us, the halyard pulled taught and it didn't take long until she was up and flapping with full vengeance -- its furler and line being whipped violently side to side. How could we reel her in without losing her forever? And then it happened -- in all our stunned silence -- the pressure was just too much and if the sheets weren't to give, she had to. So she split. All ten feet from seam to seam. Oh as we drug her in that morning, you should have seen our look of gloom.
But you know? It's amazing what this crew can do. While we sprawled her out, washed her down, and studied her injuries, not a one of us lost our heads. Sure, there were a couple loud "Shit(!!)"'s in there... and we spent a good bit of our day respectively recuperating. But all that aside, with a fine dinner and a beer, it was all we could do from sitting around the table laughing. Looking out over the water that eve, schools of flying fish kept bounding above the surface directing us toward land -- and we, tucked in, humbled and humiliated, rode some lively thread of resilience the whole way through and it's still carrying us on.
Until tomorrow, with all our love,
The crew of L'Obsession
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