Jeff's log ~ Thursday, May 29th, 2008

0600

Good morning! We are on our way to Hiroshima under cloudy skies and light wind. After yesterday’s blast from Mother Nature, things are smooth. After entering the Inland Sea, the wind came up to gale force as soon as I came up for my afternoon watch. The highest gust that I saw was 57 knots! Thank God there was only one of those. We are having a combination of problems that is resulting in lower boat performance levels the bottom is very dirty, and after yesterday, I am sure that the propeller must have some growth on it from our week in Ishigaki. At our next stop, I will have to go swimming for sure. The water is getting colder as we make our way north. We are now at about the same latitude as South Carolina.

During the night, we lost our flag. It must have come out of the socket during the big winds, and later must have worked its way out of the lashing. Whatever happened, it’s gone. We were comfortably anchored in the lee of a small island, had a nice dinner, and a good night’s sleep. I did get a couple of mosquito bites though.

While we were beating into the teeth of yesterday’s blow, the waves breaking over the boat sent jets of salt water right into my face. The auto pilot could not hold the course, so I had to stay at the wheel. The wind came up so fast that I did not have time to get my bibs on under my jacket, so my legs and feet were pretty cold. I had to drive by the speedometer. I would lay off the wind 30 or 40 degrees and build some speed and then feather the course back up and hammer away at the wind and waves until the speed dropped below 3 knots, and kept making good headway towards the calmer seas which we knew would be in the lee of the island. I was very thankful that it happened in daylight rather than at night. I was also thankful that I wear glasses, because otherwise the water would have been blasting into my eyes.

Today, the weather is very pleasant. The haze has cleared some what, and we are motor sailing through a beautiful chain of islands. The countryside is very lush and green, the sea is flat, and the sun has begun shining through the breaks in the cloud cover. The higher peaks are cloud shrouded. Japan really is a beautiful place, so far. We went a bit out of our way so that we could stop at the Itsukushima shrine. It was first built in 593, and then rebuilt in 1168. There are more than 20 buildings connected by corridors. It is on stilts, so the whole thing looks like it is floating at high tide. The island that it sits on is called Miyajima. It is a sacred island, and has been since ancient times.

The shrine is painted in vermillion lacquer and really stands out from the hillside surrounding it. Across the bay from the shrine is Hiroshima. We did not stop there. I hope that will be in the plans for the next section of the trip, when Gill and the Monroes are on the boat. We spent an hour or so at the shrine, and then dingied back out to the big boat and put the dink back on Pipe Dream. The anchor came up, and we set out for the marina where we were going to spend the night. The Lat-long that we were given had no marina, but we were up in a very nice protected cove. We all decided that it was a fine place to stay, so we dropped the hook. Mark and I jumped in the water to clean the bottom. The area just below the waterline that was stained black in Manila had a heavy amount of moss like growth on it and proved very difficult to clean. I sure am glad that I did not have to get in the water in Manila for any reason. I bet the same thing would have happened to me if I did! We ended a beautiful day with a barbeque, and Mark did a good job grilling steaks. After doing the dishes, we all sat out in the cockpit and chatted, enjoying the display of stars overhead. A truly great day!!