Easter Sunday – sunshine

This afternoon Chris downloaded our emails with the latest weather information and the files showed that the wind would ease considerably by midnight. It is still blowing at 27 to 28 knots depending which side of a wave we are and water is being thrown right over the top of the boat, sitting outside in the sun is precarious. There is very little jib out and a double reefed main but because we are close hauled and beating into the sea it sounds as though we are in a permanent train crash. We are rattling on looking forward to the calm down needless to say.

Easter Monday - hotting up

It is the midnight change of watch and we are both disappointed that far from easing, the wind has actually increased to 29/30 knots and is putting up a good old howl. Skipper's glad to crawl into his bunk.

Ah! 01.20 hours and the howling is calming down, the angle of heel has slackened slightly, the slamming has lightened and the torrents of water coming over are more occasional. 22 knots of wind – it feels like heaven and at C25º the temperature feels good too. Our speed has dropped of course, in the space of an hour or so we have gone from 7.2 to 5.3 knots and I ought to offer more jib out but at the moment I just want to enjoy this for a bit longer and celebrate with a cup of tea.

At about 06.00 hrs this morning we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. It has gradually been getting hotter since we left NZealand and the thermometer now registers C30º; duvet, hats, socks and fleeces have been cast aside and the pure cotton is out again. The wind has stayed around the 20 knots mark. Still close hauled we now have more jib out and a single reefed mainsail averaging a speed of about 5½ knots with 360 miles to go.

So far this has turned out to be one of our toughest passages and we will not be sad to have done with it. Living at an angle of 25 degrees is hard even without the lurching. However, the wind has dropped a bit more and we now have a full jib and single reefed main. The weather forecast suggests we could well end up motoring the last part!