It remains cloudy and rainy today (not so much rain really, just a steady drip like there are a bunch of leaks in the sky).
240 miles to go to Hilo
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Day 17
When we started this passage I figured the hardest part was going to be crossing the ITCZ, because that is where we were most likely to encounter violent squalls. WRONG! It turns out this last 250 miles getting to Hilo is the squalliest zone. Last night we had a doozy. Linda got me up at 2200 telling me there was something bearing down on us. We were sailing with reefed main and reefed jib. No sooner had I rolled up the jib entirely then we were almost out of control doing over 7 knots under just the reefed main. Then when we started to put the second reef in the main it got really bad. Driving rain, seas breaking over the boat and a LOT of wind. It didn't last long, only about 20 minutes (just long enough to complete all the reefing activities). Then being shell-shock we refused to let out the second reef and we ended up motoring for three hours in light winds. Bah!