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Sweet Dream - Thursday November 14, 2019



Long day that started at 04:00 with an amazing display of electrical storm power. By 06:00 the wind was getting up, so I had to get Captain up as well, we put a reef in the Genoa, which we foolishly left on the pole. At 07:00 the wind hit 36 knots and we were hard pressed to get the Genoa reefed in...we finally just furled it as far as the jury rigged line would allow....the Hoyt staysail decided it wanted to come out and play...somehow, a line caught the handle on the cleat and voila’ the staysail was flying! Well, ok, we just sheeted it in and flew along wing on wing with the bit of Genoa on the pole and the staysail on the opposite side. The storm rolled over us for 7 hours! About noon, things calmed down enough to tie off the Genoa so it couldn’t unfurl, take down the pole, and regroup. By 14:00 we had 40 knots of wind, and the seas were astounding! The wind flipped round to our nose, we received an email from Coco De Mer that they had lost their electrics for a couple hours due to a near miss of lightning! They were heading south to find a mythical back door into the harbour. We continued on our rhumb line course. Nor’ Easter started popping up on our AIS, we motor sailed hard with the staysail up for ten hours and saw some of the most spectacular displays of ocean power! My favourite; a huge breaking wave rose up and up and up, the top literally broke off and created a cascading waterfall about 20 feet high along the entire edge of it...just a couple boat lengths from our starbrd bow. I watched in utter fascination as the whole thing collapsed and sunk into a perfectly neon green, Olympic-sized pool. It was breathtaking, truly awe inspiring! We were very lucky, no breaking wave hit us directly, we just climbed up and slid down over and over and over again. The sunset was over the top beautiful! Deep orange. At 20:00, we could see the marina, but the contrary current and 26 knot noserly wind made it fully four more hours before we made landfall. And what a landfall! So Easy! The marina sent a pilot boat to guide us in, our WARCers were there to catch the lines! What a warm, fantastic feeling it created in my soul to have all those hands taking lines, standing by to fend off on the neighbouring boat, and tie us up. Wow! This was a very beautiful situation! Were were applauded, hugged and kissed and handed bottles of beer. The yacht club gave up a bottle of champagne, which with Natalie and Johanna’s help, I popped and had a little thank you ceremony for arriving safely. A pour to Neptune with thanks for safe journey, a pour on Sweet Dream, with thanks for a good boat, a toast to Captain for good skippership, and a toast to the crew, as well, then a toast of thanks to the welcoming committee!

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