The wind died so we motored most of last night, keeping to our router’s advice to head south to avoid the big waves which should gradually reduce during the day. It meant a good night for sleeping. Around 7am the winds picked up and Rowan had Sporty Spice out, the Code 0 sail. We started making some decent speed and got our average speed up nicely. The weather never seems to do quite what is predicted but the routers have said we should aim directly to NZ now, keeping an eye out for squalls. Poor Roy is not feeling great so skipped all meals today!
The sun came out and it was a very pleasant morning, although the waves are huge they are not too choppy and things are remarkably comfy, although maybe not for Roy! Just before lunch Rowan spotted a huge squall on the horizon, so we quickly got Sporty Spice down and replaced her with the jib. Soon we were in big rain and winds peaking at 32 knots. We had no reef in so Rowan kept turning down wind to de-power the boat which worked really well, we may have hit 12 knots of speed, nothing like our 17 knots speed in the squall yesterday which was with 2 reefs in the main sail! Anyhow Rowan handled it like a pro and it wasn’t that long before we had Sporty Spice back up. We are desperately trying to catch a bit of the diminishing Cyclone Lola winds otherwise we will have no wind and will be motoring.
Poor Roy had to endure the smells of my slow cooking for 8 hours, as I had defrosted a whole chicken yesterday. It was a very expensive French Organic chicken we bought in Tahiti. We are allowed no chicken into NZ, so we were determined to eat it. Thankfully it was really delicious, almost like confit chicken, accompanied by some tasty fresh green beans from the market.
I’m on the first shift which is rather good as I can be in contact with Lead roof specialists and plumbers in the UK to see if they can fix the leaks at Mettingham! I hear another storm is about to batter the UK, so have got our cleaning lady to get buckets out for the various leaks. It reminds me of the farmhouse we grew up in, when it rained hard we had to get endless receptacles out to catch the water from all the leaks in the roof. In my mind, it appeared that nobody attempted to fix the leaks, easier just to catch the water! I’m beginning to feel that way as it is the third time we have put a new lead roof on our flat roof, and it is still letting water in!
As I’m writing this in the pitch dark, I’m wondering where the full moon is and hope that it is not an enormous dark black cloud over us. Thankfully nothing is showing on the radar.
Rowan and Roy changing sails in blue skies
Cloudy sunsets …. too cold to go outside!
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