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with each other. It was easily the worst time of the entire trip back to Hawaii. These were
dark days, literally. It was midwinter at forty degrees south. The weather was freezing cold
with continually overcast, slate-grey skies. The pale winter sun could not be seen. A strong
northerly front was passing through, producing gale winds of up to forty, maybe gusting,
fifty knots. It was the coldest weather I have ever sailed in. The pilot heralded the alarming
fact that I was only a mere three hundred miles from the iceberg limits. This was shocking
to me; in my wild imagination I could clearly see floating rogue icebergs: jagged, pale blue,
and silently unseen at night. It was not as uncommon these days to discover these errant
solo voyagers from Antarctica.
I could not use my lights at night now, as my batteries were flat. The overcast weather could
not charge my solar panel, nor could I get a sun sight or a fix either because of the cloud
cover. I ran on deduced reckoning for over a week.
I had plenty of sea room and was not concerned about hitting any land mass. What really
got to me was the fact that there was no sea traffic out there. No shipping lanes. I was off
the beaten track. I felt like I was the only person out there, and the feeling of loneliness
was indescribable. If something happened to me in the storm, a broken mast or worse, a
broken leg, I could not contact anyone as I was in too remote an area, and again, my bat-
teries were too flat for any radio use. It was a sobering experience. For the first time on
my entire cruise, I was very scared and alone and very depressed. I continually questioned
myself of my motives for wanting to sail alone on this dangerous ocean.
The gale howled mercilessly on, and the shrieking of the wind through the rigging wire
was getting under my skin. To make matters worse, my aluminum radar reflector had all
but broken off at the very top of the mast. It hung on by one length of string and, for sev-
eral days as the mast rotated and gyrated about in the heavy seas, the reflector banged and
knocked about on the rigging wires that were shackled to the mast cap. It was madden-
ing and wearing my nerves down. I would go above every hour or so to peer through the
stormy gloom for any boats or anything, and I would glower up at this malevolent reflector.
It was determined to saw through one of my stays and bring the bloody mast down. There
was absolutely nothing I could do about it either if my life depended on it!
I was dressed in long, thick sweat pants, thick rugby socks, and rubber sailing boots. I wore
a vest and a thick, fleecy, long-sleeved shirt with my sailing Gore-Tex jacket and woolen
balaclava. I was still freezing down below in the cabin with all the ports and the compan-
ionway hatch closed. I took only my boots off when I got into my sleeping bag, and only
then was I fairly warm. For my sanity, I discovered that if I played the guitar, sitting cross-
legged on my bunk up forward, studying and learning complicated jazz chords and move-
ments, I able to disguise the conditions around me. Somewhat. Sometimes.
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