Thursday, March 25, 2010

Litterally hanging on by my toes

Pacific Ocean - Easter to Gambiers, day 3
29 12.9S 113 27.8W

Around noon yesterday we passed by two small squalls and suddenly the wind was coming from the SouthEast. It was quite pleasant at 12-15 kts on the aft quarter, but it quickly built to 25-30 with gusts as high as 40kts, and the seas became very steep and quite confused. Since then we have been rocking and rolling with the occasional wave breaking across the deck, and you literally have to use every part of your body to brace yourself in the bigger rolls....my legs are killing me from bracing all afternoon, and evening watch.

The wind has come down slightly to 22-25 with gusts to maybe 32kts, but the seas are still quite confused and in some ways it is even worse as we are rolling more without as much power in the little handkerchiefs we have up for sails....just a tripple reefed main and staysail. Still, we are making decent time, averaging about 7 kts in the right direction. Hopefully these conditions will subside and we can finally get some of that Peaceful Pacific sailing we heard so much about.

This of course didn't keep me from cooking a wonderful dinner of roast beef tenderloin, with a garlic-rosemary rub and baked potatoes as well as making bread dough to make fococia tomorrow. Dinner was super tasty (easy with a nice piece of meat) and for desert we had moms chocholate chip cookies....mm, mm, good! Too rolly to write much more for now.

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