Monday, 2013-11-18, 11:30, 21:47.804S 177:29.830E, COG 185, SOG 7.5kn, Wind 17kn SE

 

Not much happening on the boat except for hiding from the sun and spray, feeling more or less sick, and thinking a lot. We both miss our wives and Rob vowed never again to be further than 3ft away from Rach. Very cute. There are a lot of thoughts going through my head about the blog entry when I’m lying in my bunk, when when I sit down to write the blog my mind’s all blank. Which is partly because the boat is moving so much that it already takes some effort just to sit. Good news is that we finally managed to keep some food down – a muesli bar and a bit of pineapple. Yay! But we’re making good speed and course, which is definitely a plus.

 

Our general tactic is to keep a little east of our target so we have some room to manoeuvre in squalls, or can take a gentler westerly course when the wind turns South. Which will happen eventually, the question is only when and where we’ll be at the time, hopefully past Cape Reinga. So we’re sailing close-hauled at 30-60 degrees apparent wind and that means a lot of heel, a lot of water coming over, and a lot of movement.

 

Last night the usual thunderstorms popped up and with no apparent gap to run through and the whole system stretching far across the horizon we hadn’t much of a choice but to go for it. The first was quite tame, 30kn and only a little lightning, but it forced us on a SW heading for an hour before we could turn back S. But the second thunderstorm was already waiting for us with 40kn of wind and heavy rain and we took down the mainsail and hid inside for two hours. Not very pleasant, we hope that there’ll be less as the water cooles, it’s only 24C already.

 

822nm to go