Towards Mauritius

JJMoon Diary
Barry and Margaret Wilmshurst
Sat 6 Oct 2012 08:04
This is more like it.  This is what we have all been waiting for.  It has been a thoroughly unpleasant night.
 
We mooched around the town, cleared up our exit paperwork and let go the quay about noon, local time.  We were immediately attacked by a heavy squall of wind and rain.  We dodged through the reefs, fairly blind, but then enjoyed a very good sail for the rest of the day resulting in encouraging progress.  Overnight we had to put up with a series of squally showers that tried our patience and put strain on our good tempers.  One was the  “mother of all squalls” starting with a big wind shift, sailing by the lee, (very unsettling for those lying in bed), everything aback, loud noise, sheeting rain and, for a short time, rather too much to do for a single pair of hands.  With everything more or less sorted out we were left with rough seas tossing our little boat about so that the watch below were jerked and rolled in their bunks.  It’s calmer now but we are sailing about 15 degrees south of the direct route to bring the wind on to the quarter, a more comfortable point of sailing.
 
The log reads 150 miles and we have 180 still to go.