Day 11
9pm 03:13UTC
pos 09deg28S, 111deg53W
Course is due west 270deg
Distance to Fatu Hiva 1574
All is still well on shimmi. Early this morning at about 1am we were being clobbered by some big waves, smashing into the underside of the bridge deck. We could no longer sail safely on a reach, so i furled the headsail and with only the reefed mainsail tried to run with the mess as mush as we could, sailing at about 150-160 degrees. It was more comfortable on board, but the boom still smashes around which is now the most irritating thing in my life by far. This morning we had a bosberaad (meeting under fire). We simply had to make things more comfortable on board. So without further ado we whipped up the spinnaker and dropped the main. We have been sailing since 9am with only the spinnaker and its going well. Stoked to have a reprieve from the main sail. We are not going as fast as before but its way more comfortable we as have the sea virtually on our bum, we are running down the 9deg28minute line of latitude, Fatu Hiva lies at 10deg35 latitude so we are well positioned. The true wind speed is around 14-20 knots ESE and our apparent wind on board is around 8-14 knots from behind. We still do a few 8-9 knot surfs but nothing like yesterday which was a 171 mile day! As the sun went down this evening we had 3 squalls developing around us, so we rigged up the rain catcher again and lets hope we get some rain. Our water tank is under half and we will soon have to go on rations if we don't get water within the next day or so. Andy cooked up another fillet steak, crumbed potatoes and hot bean salad combo, what a meal. Best meal for 1500 miles, haha. The kids are great, it was altogether a better day. However as i am writing this the sea is getting rough again with rogue southerly chops thumping through under shimmi. I had 3 lines out this arvo but no luck. Tonight i am trolling a big black and orange squid with a big stainless hook on 300 pound mono all the way to the boat. I wanna sea a big dead tuna bodysurfing behind the boat tomorrow morning or else i want my money back.
This long crossing from an emotional point of view is a bit like the emotions you go through when told you have a terminal decease: When we left Galapagos we were all IN DENIAL about how far it was, then once it started getting rough from day 4 onwards we were ANGRY, pissed off as this is supposed to be an easy milk run cruise, then by day 8 DEPRESSION had set in, we still had such a long way to go blahblahblah. Not sure how long this phase lasts AS WE ARE STILL IN IT! No seriously, we have all now ACCEPTED our lot. What comes after ACCEPTANCE? God we need a fucking prize at the end off all this. Especially Chantal as she takes the brunt of the kiddie factor which is MASSIVE. Some sweet waves on Fatu Hiva would be nice... are we aloud to start dreaming about our destination? At our current average speed of 6 knots we still have 11 days ahead of us. BOOM!!! A wave hits the bridge deck and the laptop jumps half a foot in the air. I feel like that guy in the movie would wanted to sue God. What happened with that guy? Did he get paid out?
