Clouds Gathering…
Overcast skies greeted us this morning and later on we went through a few light rain “squalls”, though you could hardly call them that because the winds stayed below 20 knots through them. Mainly, the weather shift brought a change to the steady SE winds, bringing them more Easterly, and we had to make more frequent adjustments to the wind vane as we got pushed more to the West. Around noon we jibed the Mainsail, dipped the pole, and ran the Yankee off to starboard. Dipping the pole at sea is always a delicate process in the high seas swell. Fortunately conditions were pretty mellow today and soon we were off on our new tack, heading on a more direct course for St. Helena.
Nep and I sorted through our food bins today, which were very disorganized from when we’d hurriedly stuffed everything away before leaving Cape Town. We had made multiple trips to the grocery store and judged we had enough food for the Atlantic crossing when we could no longer stuff anything more into the available lockers.
Tonight we listened to the BBC news and how Idiot Donald has “issued an executive order” to complete both the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines. He’s claiming that the pipelines will be built out of “American steel only, just like in the old days”, using the well-worn tactic of pitting the under-employed rust belt workers against the possibility of innovative reform, in order to line the pockets of the likes of Rex Tillerson. Just like an abusive dog owner throwing his beaten hound a rind of fat. Thanks, Master! Woof! The roughnecks and prostitutes of the boom & bust cycle will once again descend to devour another piece of innocent America, skulls will be cracked, morals corrupted, and treaties broken. Yadda yadda yadda…the contracts were signed behind closed-doors a long time ago.
As a Privateer, I reject the fake TV/Twittersphere leadership of our hijacked country. I denounce the propaganda that the mainstream media plays to the rest of the world. I’ve sailed around most of the world now and am getting weary of answering the question “Are Americans really that stupid?” in every country. I don’t know, maybe we are? How was it again that the Nazis persuaded the innocent Germans to look the other way? Some sort of group psychology trick? Storm clouds are gathering and we are reefing our sails. Literally 😉
