south of Hilo. Day's run 138 miles.
We had to deal with the northeast winds all day again today and they
pushed us to the west until we were in the proximity of Filippo Reef and
its surrounding shoals. I hate Filippo Reef. Kara and I had to deal with
these "phantom reefs" during our sail south in 2011, and we were forced to
tack away from them in the dark back then just to be safe. We only came
to within twenty miles of the easternmost reported shoal today, so it
wasn't a real problem, but it brought back unpleasant memories. Filippo
Reef and three other nearby shoal spots were each sighted individually by
vessels between 1865 and 1926, but their existence was never confirmed
thereafter. Hence the "phantom reef" description. They are all still on
the charts.
We seem to be done with squalls for a while so the wind is steadier in
both direction and strength. We had a reef in the main this morning, but
shook it just after noon and have been under full sail ever since.
I got an email from Lori yesterday in which she indicated that her Uncle
Joe in Jackson, Wyoming, who reads the blog, had emailed her asking the
definition of "grib". I'm using lots of nautical and technical terms in
the blog that many readers may not be familiar with, and "grib" is one of
them. I apologize for using terms you may not understand, but I'm trying
to write the way I talk, and that's the language we use out here.
If you don't understand a term I use, you can probably get its definition
by just searching on it in Google. But please, don't do that for "grib".
I've just learned from pal George Losey that typing "grib" in an internet
search can lead one to believe that it is an acronym for "Gay Related
Irritable Bowel Syndrome".
I can just picture Lori's Uncle Joe typing "grib" into Google, getting the
definition above, and calling out to his wife, "Gainsy, get over here and
look at this!" No wonder he decided to contact Lori for clarification.
One can get lonely out here on the high seas, but not THAT lonely… Look
further down the list. I'm not sure what the acronym stands for exactly,
but the grib I'm talking about is a graphical computer generated weather
model that I receive daily via email. It gives us forecast wind speed and
direction for our areas of interest.
Tony laughed so hard when I read this to him that I thought he was having
a seizure.
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