Singing in the rain
Escapada
Andreas Haas
Sat 5 Dec 2009 16:05
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15.26.08N 048.59.77W
Life on ESCAPADA continues to rock and roll. We are
already in the Caribbean weather zone, only 700 miles from St. Lucia.
Yesterday and today the winds have
been continuously changing speed and direction,
while the temperature steadily climbed. Consequently, we are also seeing
increased rain clouds and experiencing
occasional squalls. This has made for some challenging
sailing and periodic revision of our sail configuration. We have
very sophisticated communications
technology to receive weather
reports. Through the satellite telephone we receive email weather reports from
the ARC weather center and download GRIB files from
special weather sites. These
are supposed to give us weather forecasts and outlooks for days ahead. Unfortunately, they have been
wrong most of the time. Therefore,
we have relied on more proven technologies, like reading
the clouds, the waves and being flexible to change and adapting
accordingly.
The Parasailor came down in a hurry at sunset as a major squall was
steadily creeping up behind us. We motored in an unsuccessful attempt to out
maneuver it. When
it finally slammed us in the back with gale force winds
and heavy rain, we were ready! We all had our shower gel and towels
in hand in the cockpit, lathered up and
had a refreshing open-air shower while "singing in the
rain". After a great seafood pasta dinner, we raised the Genoa which
reliably and safely took us through the moonlit,
starry night. Today, the winds changed again, increasing in speed and
changing direction. We decided to seize this opportunity and do some
racing and give our
competition a chance to eat our spray! . Up went the mainsail, out came the
reef in the Genoa, on went the suncream and hoochy koochy rock and roll, we are
blasting
to the islands at over 7 knots.
 
SHOWERING AND SINGING IN THE
RAIN FULL
MOON AND MOONPATH AFTER THE SQUALL
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