Storm Warning

Crappy, crappy, crappy weather. Let me try and describe the past 30 hours.....Everything began with an email we received from our friends who were about 100 miles ahead of us enroute to the same island. The email was titled..."Storm Warning"...we watched as each byte was slowly downloaded. Finally we could read it and it said:

"Hi Guys,

We thought we should let you know, we were just in a storm of about Beaufort 8-10 for around an hour, we are 130 miles at 70deg from Palmerston and it would be travelling at around 10-15knts on about 220deg, so should miss you, unless it turns a bit. We're OK, minor damage to a couple of bits. Don't want to worry you, but might be worth keeping and eye on the radar."

Well the email did scare us and it wasn't long after that the sky filled with cloud, the wind picked up and the rain began. After a few hours of this the seas also grew. We reefed Artemo way down and flew under only a tiny spiff of main sail. I couldn't believe how fast we were going under so little sail. Winds were high. Things got so bad I heard those dreaded words from Graham's mouth last night...."I can't make dinner tonight!" ha. We ate crackers, kobasa and cheese. He tried to make lunch and we had the pot of soup securely latched to the stove top and the stove is also gimbaled but since the back and forth smacking is so intense the hot pot of soup flew. To risky to cook now.

Right now the harsh reality of life on a monohull is right in our face. The small amount of floor space we have is covered in wet rain gear. The cockpit cushions are strewn across the table. The front v-birth bed has a blue tarp overtop of it but it came off during the night and the bed is soaked from a couple of small leaks up there. In order to step outside you have to climb over the companionway door and ensure you have full rain gear on as the cockpit is soaking wet. Once outside you have to quickly tether in. Our feet and hands are all shrivelled up and sore......basically WE ARE LIVING THE GOOD LIFE! ha ....NOT..but somehow in this chaos everyone maintains their spirits. I hear Graham and Alex talking in the cockpit about our speed and telling stories about when we use to tree plant. Amelia is watching Madagascar and I am typing. When it gets really bad we just reef right down and come down below and rest.

I am dreaming of arriving and for this hell to end but at the same time....I couldn't put a price on these moments. We are about 35 miles away from our destination but unfortunately we have heard that there are NO mooring balls left. We are praying a boat leaves today and there is room for us to stop. If there isn't we have to just keep on going to Nuie. I can't tell you how upsetting it will be to not be able to stop and recoup. Everyone think positive thoughts for us and visualize us safely on a mooring ball in Palmerston!!!!

We will keep you posted.

Julie

ps.....Alex is still fishing, so if you could also visualize him landing a huge Mahi to that would be great! :-)