Karina:
As Gary said yesterday, the days have blended together. The last 72 hours have been under very squally conditions in VERY big seas. On the first day of squalls I wrote to the blog that the seas were horrendous. It turns out I had a few things to learn. Yesterday had the biggest waves I've seen so far. On the beam. Very exciting. The "two hand rule" suddenly had a whole new meaning. We knew the winds and seas were coming and had prepared for it by putting up our storm staysail. We've been sailing with both our staysail and genoa and have been able to manage all the squalls by pulling in the genoa as required. As the winds fluctuated between 8 and 30 knots on a regular basis, there was a lot of letting sail out, then madly pulling it back in when the winds picked up. We had to keep the boat speed up to at least 5 knots or we just stalled out in the huge seas. Then it was like being a ping pong ball down below. But, we figured out what to do and managed the days pretty well, I think. Nadine even made bacon and eggs yesterday morning, in the huge, huge seas!
Today was much better. We had a lovely afternoon of 15-20 knot winds on the beam, and the seas were definitely down (ie, back to my first definition of 'horrendous' - it is all relative). I actually read my book on my noon to 3pm watch instead of intently watching the wind gauge to figure out when I needed to reduce sail. We all even showered! A momentous day. But, alas, it was too good to be true. We had all met in the cockpit after shower time to discuss our newly clean status, when in the blink of an eye the winds went from the nice gentle 15 knots to 28 knots! After a flurry of activity we had things under control again, but I don't think we are clean anymore. Oh well. All in a day of sailing offshore!
Overall, everything is good. We are all looking forward to arriving at Easter Island on Thursday. 319nm to go.
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