Day 3
THE HORROR THE HORROR (Joseph Conrad)
Position: 20deg15.8S, 169deg55E, approaching Vanuatu
　
By yesterday afternoon a nice SE was up again and we broad reached the whole night under full sail, flying along at 9 knots in a moderate sea. But by sunrise it all changed. The wind rapidly strengthened to 25 knots and we had to scramble to get a reef in. Within half hour the moderate sea was utterly crap, with big 8 foot chops sideswiping shimmi, throwing pots off the stove and sending all the kids and adults to the floor. Coupled to this challenge was the fact that Chantal and I were by now beyond tired. The 3 on 3 off watch routine had turned us into zombies. But we had a full day ahead, with two wide eyed boys craving attention. Josh promptly vomited. Another hour went by, the sea just got worse, it felt like a giant dog had shimmi in its mouth, just shaking us side to side, up and down. I started changing course, allowing shimmi to run more with the weather, this eased our ride, but we were no longer headed for New Cal. Instead we are now headed for Aneityum Island, the southern most of the Vanuatu's. There is a safe anchorage in the south where we hope to find shelter.
And all this shit went down during Chantal's 38th birthday. A few tears were shed, I tell you. During Chantal's lunch time snooze I managed to bake a cake from scratch, and it came out perfectly. It was a variation of my mom Renee's cinnamon cake, I adapted it from a banana bread recipe. Light and fluffy, baked all the way through (just imagine how the wet cake was surfing around inside the oven), sprinkled liberally with cinnamon sugar. The two boys were stars today, basically we turned the saloon floor into a big Krismis bed, it felt a bit like being in a tent camping in the rain, except for the lack of solid ground of course.
Cheers
G