DAY 201

The wind pushes us mildly to north west and everything around looks nice. Today we will spend a little time on the generator. The resourceful, little engine for half a year now busily loads batteries, puts in motion refined sweet water and animates almost each evening a 20-inch thick, deck cinema. I checked the hour meter in the morning; it’s still 50 to change of oil. We change oil in engines every 200 hours if the engine works often, and every 150 hours or 6 months if it’s geared rarely. I will probably change the oil in both engines at the same time, the one in main  engine "grew a beard"  ... It seems that we are here all by ourselves, once there were great sailing ships here, embarked with Indian spices, Chinese porcelain and silk. Now the route is empty, there are no sails on the horizon, you don’t hear boatswain's whistles, and nobody sings at work about the lovely like a little yacht port trollop Sally. And we, well, we check only if the old western route is still good for navigation.

DAY 193

Sat Sep 15 09:48:45 2007 UTC - 27 5.22 S - 5 42.48 E

It got quieter today, but we still have 3-4 B in good direction, the wave also gets smaller, sometimes it doesn’t move us at all and we feel like we were in port. Yesterday I dreamt that I saw on the horizon a great sailing-ship, but actually its filled with wind white, corpulent sails, let's take this as good divination. Yesterday we had a bit of work in the engine room, I turned on the engine in order to check if it’s alive and to let it heat up. Of course I took advantage of the fact that it works in order to load the accumulators. Suddenly I heard a long whistle and the indicatory device of the revolutions of engine stopped showing them. I went to the engine room, it turned out that with the wedge belt gearing up the main alternator (we have 2) broke. Wedge belts crack and there’s nothing alarming about this, it’s just that the engine has only 200 hours after repair and the belt should be almost new. I looked at everything closely and it turned out, not for first time, that I screwed up while repairing the engine. Alternator, actually a wheel with a row which moved the belt, was not exactly in line with the row on the wheel of engine. The belt rubbed against its edge and got used up like a sock. I corrected the alignment of the alternator and put on a new belt. It’s a few times now that I’m correcting my own “fuck ups”. I made all the repairs of the yacht with my own two hands, many things I did for first time and then I was directed more by my imagination about in which manner they must be set up, or done. It turned out that I did not always happened to do something right and so like now it had to be fixed. Back then it seemed to me, that the alternator is placed sufficiently straight in relation to the engine, life however corrected me on this and burnt a little brand in my memory and now, for the rest of my life I will remember, in which position in relation to the engine the alternator must be. I think that confrontation of our imagination, of dreams with reality, creates these genuine experiences. Almost all of my adult life it seemed to me that I possess every indispensable disposition to sail the world alone. But until I actually left on this journey, my thoughts about it were like ghosts without a body, like a soul of inanimate being. Only the yacht created from my dreams and leaving on this cruise, bestowed onto them a physical form and now indeed they are real ... And because I was the author of my dreams, and I bestowed onto them their physical form, I firmly believe that my journey will be without all dramas; broken masts, fights for my life and that I will spend this time closely with Mother Ocean in harmony and great form. Now is when I verify my imagination and except for a few moments of hesitation which however faded somewhere after the first glass whisky, the world around me looks like the one which I once held in my thoughts. I do experience little defeats sometimes, but it’s because of them that I then experience great victories ..., - what’s important is on which experiences we lay greater accent hehehe ... The possibility of committing one's own errors, and then likelihood to correct them, and if you can’t correct them, then to remember  them without self-destructive sense of guilt, is a greatest and most effective road, in order to learn to properly choose, in order to in effect, in the end perceive that the only choice is love ...

 Ps: It’s strange, how unconcernedly I went from alternator to love ... Hehe .. Bottle of 15-year old whisky ago, who will solve the equation - “alternator + love=...”

DAY 192

Fri Sep 14 09:42:03 2007 UTC - 27 46.60 S - 7 8.35 E

The weather is super nautical, Luka sails herself, from time to time I hear the squeaking autopilot pump and the waves hitting the trunk, when like a marine swan (a little overgrown) we sail about the waves bowing  deep to Mother Ocean ... In the morning I checked the weather, it assures that we will have friendly, restrained winds for the next few days. In such conditions, on can easily fall in love with sailing again, especially since there’s no need to tighten my hands on the steering wheel. This wheaterfax is a miraculous thing; it shows a bit of the future. I know how strong the wind will be tomorrow, day after tomorrow, and the next day. For a sailor this is fundamental knowledge, in the wind lays comfort and sense of security, or trouble and sense of danger. What a giant influence on our decisions which we incessantly make the sense of security has, knows everyone who from a certain moment lets go of the protective hand of their mother and at once meets „the unknown” . Mr. Maslov altogether justly stated that a sense of security is the foundation of all other psychological needs of man. If it’s not felt, it blocks the development of higher needs. It wasn’t that long ago that the weather was, very generally and not very accurately foretold by  „highlanders” , now  it will suffice to push a few buttons and it shows the future. Weather, like everything else in our world, is under the universal law of „cause and consequence”. Meteorologists  observing causes today already without problems foresee their consequences, for example; forces and direction of the wind in the course of coming days. So is it possible then that someday they will build a computer with such great efficiency, that it will be able to, following the example of today’s meteorologists, analyze causes and give an honest  „prognosis”  of the next  year of the life of man X .. .., or foresee the effect that political decisions made by our President and partnership will lead to, in the next three years. It’s a little fantastic, but Julius Verne’s under-water submarine was no less fantastic in his day.

Weather today is super, it pushes us 4 B from backstay, the sun is rising right now and like a bird, I sing the song -  "I only miss you Beatko, in this jail, I only miss you, you here, you here…." , such morning hug of my angel ..., oh, sailor’s destiny ...
 It seems that we’re not able to correctly appraise things and situations “when they are sitting in our lap”. Only from a distance, or when they pass, we can fully appreciate their worth or what they meant to us.
 Wacek more often now pushes his muzzle on my pillow, when we sleep in mesa and sometimes his stinking respiration wakes me up, I think he’s starting to get cold, he has brief and thin fur. I bought him warm clothing once, thinking about Cape Horn, I’m not sure, however, how he would pee through it ... I have to find it, maybe I can make a slit ...

DAY 189

Tue Sep 11 07:11:31 2007 UTC - 29 37.40 S - 11 13.74 E
 

Yesterday silence, today 7 B straight in the eyes, with evening this will change  on 4-5 from the east and I hope that it will remain that way for a while. Uncle Janek already reached his Gostolin, I still feel the taste of dried kielbasa, although I ate the last of it a few days ago ... We at least have beer but I’m trying  not to reach for it out of habit, only when I feel a specific need, or else there would be none left. Wacek demands entertainment even more so than before, he keeps squeaking, waves his tail, most often he wants me to tear away from him a bit of leather bone, it’s weird that he doesn’t get a concussion from this. He is so into this that I could hold onto the leather bone, along with Wacek who’s attached to it, turn them in the air like a mill and throw him in the air. Stubborn little bandit.

Day 188

Mon Sep 10 06:22:35 2007 UTC - 29 29.63 S - 11 18.08 E
 

Day 187

Sun Sep 09 06:14:23 2007 UTC - 29 59.35 S - 11 38.68 E

The wind today is anemic and moreover it seems that it has the intention of turning, every little while I have to take up the sails. The weather prognosis "tells” that tomorrow the wind will blow right in our eyes, but perhaps we can avoid this little low, and it will brush us only a little. Yesterday I threw the fishing-rod to water, I would gladly eat fresh fish. I decided not to punish myself and not to eat the fish every day if I catch it, instead I will fry it for two days, the rest I will dry out and it will be served with rice.

Day 186

Sat Sep 08 06:54:39 2007 UTC - 30 17.78 S - 12 16.43 E

The wind was dying all night, I had to go out a few times on deck. Now, in the morning, something is still blowing but it’s too little, the autopilot loses course sometimes, there isn’t even a dead wave, it died together with the wind ... In spite of this we’re moving in the wanted direction, with two knots. If I had only an automatic rudder, we would now be going around in a circle. Auto-rudders are a gorgeous invention but at the same time troubled „beings , ” they don’t work in feeble winds, they don’t like courses with the wind, they are set up in very exhibited for the bumps of waves place, they often succumb to damages. The one I took as plan „d” , lost the steering fin already at the beginning of our cruise. One and a half inch full rod, the main part of helm, broke and dove. An inner autopilot is not endangered to breaking or bending, and if it is from a good company and we are able to balance the arrangement of sails, the consumption of current can not be large and what’s important, it lets you know if it happens to stray off course. On the other hand, in case of an auto-rudder, the yacht turns, when the wind turns ... Let's imagine sailing near the coast .. .incessant checking of course and stress. The only plus of the auto-rudder, is when you are far from the coast and you don’t have to zig-zag, or change of course for a few hours, you don’t have to get up at night and loosen the sails, the yacht independent from alternating direction of the wind, will sail half-wind or backstay on which you placed it.

My love didn’t call yesterday, this can mean that she overslept. You owe me a text message, Beatka.
We’re sailing on an old sailing route, leading from the tip of Africa to the top of the Atlantic ports. In some time the routes will begin to branch out, but presently there is only one, leading from east to west. When I close my eyes, especially after a third gulp from the bottle, I see the filled with wind sails of dilatory brigs and scooners. The magic however disappears, the sails change into the perishing somewhere foam and it seems that we are the only ship in the world ...It’s curious that from the day we left Ensenada I did not even see a board with a sail ... Where is all this sailing-boat beauty, balanced ketches, quick sloops, slender yawls and dignified gaffs? It seems that except for us there is nobody, and it would be so great to take the microphone in one hand, in the other beer and talk with some brotherly soul about the broken bloc or most safely about this time of year and route around the Cape of Good Hope ... Ehhh .. Maybe Andrzej Korycki was right, when he sang that there are no more genuine sailors, there are only trapped in ports yachts like birds in stone cages, and together with them, half wasted away human dreams. But not all is lost, sometimes some exceptionally brave sailor can free some dreams and sail out together in a long journey. I just read about Tomek Cichocki who in a few days, or maybe already left on his great cruise, around the world, solitarily, without stopping in ports – he reminds me of someone... We will pass by him on old Atlantic Ocean, although when he will come by here, I will already be somewhere near South America, in road to Cabo De Hornos. Maybe if he has a SSB radio, we will be able to talk ...

Ps: Yesterday in the evening a whale visited us. At first he loomed right at ship's side, but before I went to get the camera, he moved further away. He had a gnawed at back fin, it’s probably some veteran ... I’m enclosing a picture.
 

DAY 184

Thu Sep 06 07:36:03 2007 UTC - 31 44.74 S - 15 31.79 E


Finally, some decent wind arrived. It started turning us during the late evening. So we gathered ourselves with the wind and sailed in the northwesterly direction.
During the night, I got almost no sleep because we were making our way through a flotilla of fishing vessels. The fishing must have been really good, because we passed about thirty boats. Of course, some of them we may have passed more than once because they were moving in circles, changing directions and moving back and forth. It was hard to predict where they would turn up next. If nothing extraordinary happens, we will follow the old sailing route, the route well-worn by the sailing ships of yore, making their way from South Africa to Brazil . Then, in the region of 10*W, we will begin turning southwest, and then, along the coast of South America, we will be making our way south, toward Cape Horn .We will continue in our unhurried ways. It means comfort and laziness. There is no fear about each mile, worrying that we will be late for the optimal season to pass by Cape Horn . In conclusion, the decision to sail earlier was wiser than I had originally thought. LUKA is not a racing yacht; she is a heavy, comfortable lady, and loaded with equipment and supplies to the limits of common sense. And I am the kind of a sailor who prefers to shorten his sails at night to have a chance for a calm, peaceful night. I have plenty of supplies and plenty of time and Mama Ocean once again is smiling at us.
 

183

Wed Sep 05 06:44:07 2007 UTC - 32 29.32 S - 16 32.33 E

For forty eight hours now the gentle western wind pushes us in direction of Africa, there is still much space at the lee, besides that this evening the wind should  change to eastern and I hope to go with it to the north west. Yesterday was creative, I fixed the positional light, it turned out that most of the little LED bulbs burned out. They probably burned out when I loaded the batteries, the strain in system reaches 29 V and in  „casing ”  I soldered in only 7 (7x3.6V=25.2V). This time I made a  „bulb"  with  8 led’s , it shouldn’t burn out now. It’s strange how vividly these little ones glow, they illuminate the whole deck at night. After midday I took to the GPS antenna. I tried to connect the cables in different ways, the colors of cables for the reserve antenna were different than the other one ... Each time I had to wait a few minutes observing the navigational program to check if  it "see's” the  antenna . After a few tries the position finally showed up on screen and a broad smile on the unshaven face of a sailor. I soldered and solidly insulated the connection, now again we have detailed maps and the automatic position emissions. I’m eating dry kielbasa, I was wondering if I should be saving it and eat a little every day, but in the end I decided to have it without any regrets, I’m eating it and I sipping very good, South African beer.

 182

from mail.gmn-usa.com Tue, 4 Sep 2007 07:42:11 +0000 (UTC)

Slowly we’re distancing ourselves from Africa, although in this moment we’re trying to get away from an area of western winds, our course is almost to the north. In a day or two we will cut through the belt dividing us from eastern winds and then we will really begin to get away from the banks of Africa. Since yesterday we haven’t encountered any ships, this is a great sign that we will once again be alone with Mother Ocean, our life on Luka will calm down  and smooth over like a lake. Me and Wacek will again start to count stars and wonder if these four stars beside one another is really the Southern Cross .. ..
 I decided that the most important thing today is to fix the positional light, worn out by some wave, we’re once again at the level of conserving energy, and this light is made from very economic LED lights. It is vivid and almost does not use up electricity, now when there is no necessity to have three voracious navigational lights, we will again load our batteries only once daily. The wind died, we turn in a circle with the jerking from side to side mizzen-mast, maybe something will blow and the mizzen-mast will place us at least with beak to wind ...

 181

from mail.gmn-usa.com Mon, 3 Sep 2007 09:11:09 +0000 (UTC)

The world again is lovely, and life is a gorgeous adventure. Today we slept a whole 5 hours ... The weather is super and after the opposite winds of Cape of Good Hope, now the wind apparently wants to make up for it and pushes Luka mildly to the north west, where we should find more friendly winds and turn to the west. Yesterday I loaded an almost empty accumulator. The weather was super, around 11 am Janek neared our yacht, this was a deeply moving moment. He brought beer, vodka, fresh ribs which almost at once ended up in a pot, dried kielbasa from my mom, fresh rolls, butter and fruits. I felt like I was in paradise. At one moment Janek threw me a can of beer, I opened it with smear, and this first bitterish taste full of good memories and this meeting on the sea, as if by magic loosened all the knots which lately tightened in me. I felt returning waves of energy and confidence, I felt that once again I can take things as they come .. ..
 It looks like  "crazy"  ideas is our family trait, because who other than my uncle Janek would have enough balls and brains to fly to Africa, rent a great motor-boat, find me on the sea and throw beer at me... Janek I thanked you already over the telephone, but let me thank you again here -   "you loaded  my batteries"  .. .. My  angel wanted to come also, but for a month now she has two jobs, she  still  did not resign from the “old one”, and in this  "new one"  she did not  have a chance for time off, and perhaps it was better that way, because I would die from sorrow and irritation if I couldn’t touch her and hug her, smell her hair and pull her to the cabin ... Perhaps I would hurt from such a meeting more than I would enjoy it. I will  "kiss Beata to death"  in  Ensenada. As if I got my eyesight back,  I looked around the yacht and made a list in my mind of things which I will have to fix. Today I will give myself time off, I will get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow perhaps I will start with the GPS antenna. I have to try to make it work and keep changing the connections of cables, in the end I have to happen on an adequate arrangement, besides now we’re getting away from bank and a detailed map is not necessary, the second GPS shows us with precision of up to 48 miles.

 Position about 07: 20 UT 33*16'8 S and 017*00'2 E speed 3.2 knots, course 323*

 180

from mail.gmn-usa.com Sun, 2 Sep 2007 07:19:37 +0000 (UTC)

179

from mail.gmn-usa.com Sun, 2 Sep 2007 07:19:37 +0000 (UTC)

We finally gave birth to this  "stupid  kid" , yesterday at night 16 miles at right we elapsed Cape of Good Hope.