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LOG FOR JULY 20, 2003

 
Sunday, July 20:
sunshine, very little wind
50-60 miles traversed
 
Storm turned south of us. Sat still all day. Played 500. First day of home-made bread. Peter helped with the bread - making sweet rolls. Pizza for lunch. Pea & barley soup for supper. Request for pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. All want to finish off strawberry jam & get on to another kind. Joking now about spending Christmas at sea. Saw and spoke to a fishing boat, the "Eye Lander," out of New Bedford, Mass. in late afternoon. They were finishing up before heading home in a day or two. We are at our halfway-point.
 
SMALL BOAT COOKBOOK BREAD
OR PIZZA DOUGH
Honey 1/4 c.
Yeast
Flour
Salt
Water
 
1. In a large bowl pour the honey and one cup of warm water for each one pound loaf of bread you plan to make.
2. Sprinkle yeast over top of water. Let it rest until the yeast begins to grow. - about 5 minutes.
3. Add flour, a cup at a time, until the batter is about as thick as cake batter. Beat hard - activating the yeast.
4. Cover and let rise until double in bulk.
5.Add salt - I use about 1/2 t. per loaf.
6. Continue to add flour, a little at a time, until the dough is stff. Mix by hand adding flour until it no longer sticks to your skin. Keep kneading it for lO minutes.
7. Cover and let rise until double.
8. Punch down and shape into a loaf before placing it in a well-greased and floured bread pan.
9. Let rise until double in bulk.
10.Bake 30 minutes in hot oven 400. A hot oven gives it a hard crust.
11. One pound of dough will make two pizza crusts. Roll them very thin slightly thicker around the edge. Place each on its own cookie sheet, lightly spread with spaghetti sauce, grated cheese and all the other goodies you can find. Bake at once for 15 minutes.
 
CHAPTER 15
JULY 21
 
 
For days we traveled through a high-pressure zone covering fifty or sixty nautical miles in any one twenty-four hour period. Our lack of speed was frustrating when we thought of our need to reach Ireland, but refreshing when we focused on the beauty surrounding us. The surface fog crept up on us and, just as silently, lifted to permit a full-moon-like sun to look down upon us and attempt to dry out some of our dampness.
 
The ocean itself on those slow days was often crystal clear, filled with subtle shades of blue, green and gray. It was often so clear we could see several feet below its slightly rippled surface. Many times each day pods of dolphins came to visit. We heard the sound of their quick puffs of breath as they surfaced for a matter of a second or two before returning to just below the surface. There we watched them weave in and out around our hull. Many liked to take turns leading us from within inches of our bow, while others swam farther away where they sometimes leapt in tandem into the air.
 
Someone often announced, "We have visitors," whenever they heard the first puffs or saw a tiny spray of mist that signals dolphin breathing. At the mention of visitors all the sailors on board rushed to the deck, cameras ready, to capture the next show.
 
On July 21, our luck changed. The wind blew hard, sending us on a broad reach straight for Ireland. We covered 115 nautical miles in twenty-four hours. The fog was still with us but the glossy, transparent sea was replaced by steel gray chops and eight-foot swells that pushed us quickly on our way. That cold, powerful world of water filled all of us with energy reborn. It took from us the beauties of its depths and any desire to go overboard. It also hid the dolphins.
 
Sometime during the late afternoon I remarked about how it seemed the dolphins were holding their breath all day - for we had neither seen nor heard any since the wind came up.
 
Before dark, the wind shifted, making it possible to sail down-wind directly to Ireland. The Northern Goose rocks and rolls when she sails down-wind. That deluxe baby-carriage motion is not too kind on delicate stomachs. Most of us would prefer broad tacks as a gentler way to travel, but we were pressed for time. We chose to sail down-wind.
 
I went to bed to get out of the way while the rest of the crew buckled themselves into their foul-weather harnesses and went about setting the sails for a night of down-wind traveling. Lying there in my quarter-berth, not nearly ready to sleep, I listened to the sounds of the ship. Frequently the foresail snapped with a shotgun-like crack as it tried to settle into the new course. Each time I jumped and wished my earplugs were not stored under another bunk. They were then probably shifting their position on the floor where they were stored. I was rocking and rolling no matter where I was. Being snug in my bunk, I was as relaxed as the earplugs must have been. I spent the whole night rolling from one side of the bed to the other; we must also have been pitching from bow to stern, for I woke several times to discover my head was under the chart table.
 
The sails, stored at the foot of my bunk, were keeping my feet warm as they also slid toward the chart table.
 
For hours I counted, "One, two -- one, two," as I listened to the click, clack -- click, clack of the wake against the hull and felt the push of each swell as we rode up it and the drag as we slid off its backside. There, being so comfortably safe and warm, I imagined our hull full of galley slaves rowing us across the sea as I counted, "One, two -- one, two," to the click-clack -- click, clack of their oars.
 
Sometime I must have permitted the slaves to do their rowing without me, for I woke with an urgent need to go to the head.
 
I had barely put my first foot on the floor when Fred, who was at the helm, quietly said the understatement of the trip. "Phyllis, perhaps you would like to step up here and look at the dolphins. Their phosphorescence is something to see."
 
I climbed the ladder and glanced out beyond the boundaries of the Northern Goose. She was surrounded by a wide necklace of lacy phosphorescence and sailing through the most spectacular world of silent fireworks. Long, graceful, wide streams of sparkling phosphorescence were darting in and out, with, to, and away from the Northern Goose in a three-dimensional pattern that elongated the graceful bodies of the dolphins and marked their path long after they darted on their playful way.
 
Some people say an airplane is like a bird in flight. I expect those same folks would say a jet stream is like phosphorescent dolphin's path. They are alike in that they both leave a long trail showing from where they came. I believe their differences are much greater than their likenesses. The plane and its stream are always far away and move in a straight line or at most a very slow arc. Fhey seem to be on a single plain and move very mechanically.
 
Our dolphins were with us traveling at speeds far greater than ours. They twisted and turned in large arcs on many levels with a grace no man-made object could possibly imitate.
 
Their closeness had enveloped us, removed the surface barrier between water and air, and wiped out the cold, the rain and the need to pee. We were all one playing the same magical game of sparkling fireworks in the middle of the world of water. Their world!
 
I have no idea of how long I knelt there leaning over the rail and feeling as if I truly were one of those lovely creatures. They swam with us for a very long time that night and I stayed with them until I was stiff and cold to the bone before I remembered I had awoken with an entirely different mission in mind. Quickly I took care of my problem and intended to return to the dolphins. It was hard to make my way to the head and even harder to return to the foot of the ladder. I wanted desperately to rejoin those magical creatures, but the warmth of my sleeping bag was too tempting. I stopped at the bottom of the ladder and returned to my bunk. The rest of the night was filled with dreams of phosphorescent dolphins.
 
Dreams fade quickly but memories sometimes have a much longer life. I feel sure I shall always remember that stormy night when I danced in the middle of silent fireworks in the world of the dolphins.
 
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