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Occhi Indaco - Squalls, balls and waterfalls



Today is Thursday December 1st. It’s a little after midnight UTC -2 . It’s a cloudy night and pretty gusty. Directly above us we can still see the stars but unfortunately the moon is shrouded by large ominous clouds. We are passing Skye Blue on our starboard side. They are only a mile out so we are constantly getting a collision alert from the Vesper. We have put on the radar and see that we are sailing directly into a squall. We already felt the wind gust up to TWS 26 kts from this particular cloud, and have furled the staysail in to be safe. The main is reefed down once. It is at moments like this when you sail into storms that you feel very small and insignificant.

We crossed our halfway point just before noon on Tuesday. We celebrated with a bottle of champagne - a nice bottle of Moët - just a small sip for everyone. We had a busy day, a lot of chores and everything below deck was cleaned thoroughly.
We had to get the broken car down from the mast so one crew member was sent up the mast. While doing so we had to take some tension out of the sail and went up wind a degree or two. Unfortunately the boys had forgotten to close the hatch in their cabin. So when a large wave crashed over the bow it basically flooded everything below deck… and all the cleaning had been for nothing!

Our crew reacted fast addressing the waterfall with mountains of towels and whatever we had at hand. One bunk took most of the water and was completely drenched, so the mattress and linens were taken out on deck to dry. Our entire boat seemed to be covered in laundry.

After lunch we took out the cards to play UNO. And even though it’s the same game played world wide we didn’t have the same rules, so the first few rounds were just to agree on common grounds… but it was so much fun. The cards were put in Tupperware to avoid them from blowing around and it worked really well.

The afternoon was just used to hang around and chill… still untangling the knots on the fishing line … we wonder when it will be given up. In the evening some of the crew enjoyed lying on deck and looking at the stars.

… and then came the 2 am gybe, - this did not go smoothly. An over-wrapped main sheet left the boat in irons so the crew had to work hard to recover and get the boat going again..

Later on, we were visited by a lot of flying fish, some managed to flip back into the sea while others needed a little help from crew to get back. They really do smell when they end up as passengers and hitch a ride.

During the morning’s rig check it was discovered that another car had been broken during the night and also the lazy jack sheave above the second spreader.

We had to take down the main this morning to remove and rebuild the mast track cars so up into the wind we went to take it down. A lot of water came over the bow but luckily the hatches were closed today so no more cabin waterfalls. It also started to rain. One crew member had to crawl out the boom to untangle the lazy bag zipper pull from the reef two line.

The saloon table now looked as if it had been transformed into a workbench as five mast track cars has to be completely disassembled and rebuilt… and what a lot of Torlon ball bearings, parts and tools needed to that! Good thing we have been having the days big meal at the cockpit table.

The food that was defrosted the other day due to the freezer going out has almost been consumed and it is just the meagre leftover of lasagne, chicken pot pie, tomato soup and a salad compared to our usual feasts.

It seems that everyone forgot to do their chores even though everyone has been busy. There were several cakes and loaves of bread baked and piles of laundry cleaned and hung from yesterdays debacle.

The untangling of the fishing line is still going on … what tenacity from one crew member.

This evening just before it got dark the last project of going up the mast had to be fulfilled. The lazy jack sheave had to be put in place. So up the mast the skipper went for probably the sixth time this journey. The three meter seas, twenty knot winds and racing the setting sun making this time particularly fun.

Later on half the crew was sitting on deck at the bow watching the sunset whilst others were either at the push-pit with the fishing rod or snoozing in their bunks.

Another day on the sea. Another day of challenges. Kinda go hand in hand. But another milestone was reached today, we now have less than 1000 miles to go. The sailing and the crew have been fantastic.

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