Anxious karma, coalition forces prevail

A good day followed by a not so good night. This is the definition of Karma, in that I can't have too much of a good thing. I have been coming into an area of the gulf that is much shallower, 250' and less, all night. Shallow water is bad for waves, and I've had small, irregular waves at short periods that are perfectly in synch with my boat's natural period. The winds have also decreased significantly. About once a minute she rolls strongly due to a miniscule wave because she's being plucked at her resonance. This has kept me up all night so I'm not in the very best spirits today. Also, yesterday was such a nice day, and I was previously rested before, so my brain felt it necessary to grip me in a keen anxiety that I have hitherto been too tired to experience.

I kept the main up last night until 11 when I took it down because the slatting noise was annoying me. Once again less canvas gave me more speed, from 3 to 4 kts. I have flown my drifter the whole trip, never coming down yet, and I want a bigger one with a dousing sock. I was crossing a safety fairway last night which means big boat traffic. My radar saw a few big boats come and go, but the alarm never went off. I presume their captains saw me and avoided me. This added to my anxiety of the night.

Today and tonight I have to play a game where I go just the right speed. If I go too fast I'll just end up waiting, sails down and rocking at night, not too far from the Tortugas. If I go too slow, which barely seems possible sometimes, then I won't get anchored down until late Monday, and there isn't much good daylight in the winter. The thoughts of navigating the reefs in anything less than nice sunshine crept into my dreams last night, with action shots beneath the water of how close my keel was coming to federally protected corals, while The Man watched me on radar so he could run out and haul me off to jail (Dry Tortugas was a jail btw), but he'd never deign to come and pilot me in.

Anyway it's time for coffee, an elixir to hopefully boost my mood. Today I think I will try to rest as much as I can, and you had better believe that I'll be very happy to be anchored in a protected spot once I get there. A good news is I can smell microbial death, and the battle waged in my sinuses overnight was won by coalition forces.