Captain's Log - Saturday, 5 September 2009

Saturday, 5 September 2009, with color and context added
More of the same. But at least the sky was mostly clear. The moon wasessentially full and provided nice visibility at night. At 0400 the windshad freshened to more than 25 knots but had veered sufficiently that we wereable to sail the course on a close reach. It was quite bouncy as*Maryam*slammed into the waves and water came rolling down the deck.At 0710 a notesays "Jolt falling off wave triggered the 12 volt alarm, and the B&Ginstruments reset. Is there an incipient short?" (This question has not beenresolved as I write, but it has faded in seeming importance.)

We were also out of water. *Maryam* has two water tanks, each of which holds100 gallons. They are molded to the inside of the hull on either side of themast. The pickup for the fresh water pump is at the deepest part of each tank, the part closest to the center of the boat. We usually close one tankand run off the other until it is empty. That way we know when we have usedhalf of the water. Excessive heeling can foil this technique. When we haveused 1/4th of the water in one tank and it becomes the leeward tank withsignificant heeling, the water runs to the side and the pickup point is nolonger under water. The solution is to switch to the windward tank. We hadhad to switch tanks when we tacked on Wednesday. Now the port tank was emptyand, when we switched back to the starboard one, it seemed empty also. Wehad plenty of drinking water in bottles, but not having fresh water to cookand wash with is troubling. Needless to say, this led to lots of talk aboutwho used up all the water. Unhelpfully, I told of my being 17 days at seagoing from Tortola to the Azores and not using up the water in these sametwo tanks.

Around 1800 we spotted a massive iceberg in the far distance. We had notseen ice since 100 miles out of Prins Christian Sund. All of that ice hadbeen from the east coast of Greenland and was carried south by the East Greenland Current. The water temperature of that current is about 0°C inAugust. This massive iceberg originated from a glacier on the west coast of Greenland and was carried here by the Labrador Current.

The September temperature of the Labrador current is 6°C, warmer than Greenland but stillquite cold. The Labrador Current continues to flow south and is the reasonthe water in Maine and around Martha's Vineyard is so cold even in thesummer.

By midnight the wind had veered to the point that we were on a beam reach, generally a comfortable point of sail.