Friday5th October Strong winds of around 30-40 kt gusting to over 50kt at times and big, rough seas made moving about the boat very difficult all day long. Anything slightly loose jumped onto the cabin sole if it could and the best, safest place to be was in my warm bunk
It was difficult to read the wind display from a distance but I was amazed to see over 50kt at one point, with most readings being in 30s and 40s. Heeled well over and being bumped about regularly in the big seas that had built up makes for difficult movement down below - safer to stay well-cushioned in my bunk - moved over from the starboard side to be on the lee side.of the boat.
Being hove to with rather too much canvas meant that we made rather more speed than I expected - but our course was a safe one. We'd started off drifting E in the S wind that made me heave to in the first place and as the wind backed with the oncoming Low passing over, it went more into the E - driving us more N at greater speed in the stronger wind. I wasn't expecting to be caught by such strong E winds - with hindsight, it would have been better either to have deployed the JSD (series drogue) or to have tacked around (with deeper reefed mainsail) before heaving to - that would have made us drift S rather than N! (I'd learned that lesson in 2007 when I had ten days of hand-steering towards Trinidad from Fernando de Noronha and heaved to every seven hours for five hours of rest, food etc. Pity I didn't do it this time but I didn't expect to be hove to for so long....)
Job in daylight is to tidy up the mess of wet lines on the cockpit sole - hopefully the sky will stay clear and the sun will dry them all out. Good to have hot food ready-made - I'd added a handful of rice yesterday.
Sat 6th Oct
6:30am PDT - Pleiades are almost overhead, with Orion and Taurus on either side, of course, and the Great Bear is high up to the north. A lovely waning crescent moon is fairly high and lighting up the still-rough seas - they'll take a time to die down.
We're 90miles from Ocean City in Washington State, USA, slightly north of due west - nice to be making a good speed of 6kt in the 20kt wind.
1200 PDT - end of Day 3. We've made 78 nml. DMG over the 24 hr perod - not much but actual distance was well over 108 n.ml - we continued being taken north from midday yesterday, hove to in the storm, and then we headed south (from W of Cape Flattery!!), sailing to here.
Position & weather report just posted to Winlink:
TIME: 2018/10/06 19:00 LATITUDE: 47-17.00N LONGITUDE: 126-27.00W
COURSE: 191T SPEED: 6.2kt WIND_SPEED: 20kt WIND_DIR: NW
SWELL_HT: 3.0m CLOUDS: 40% BARO: 1021hPa TREND: 2
AIR_TEMP: 15.0C SEA_TEMP: 16.0C COMMENT: Fluffy white cumulus. Seas still rolly,100ml W Westhaven Cove, nr. Ocean City
Seas are still well up and throwing us around at times but the sun is shining. I just discarded my overtousers - it's slowly getting warmer but not fast enough - I can't wait to discard the several layers I'm still wearing to stay warm, although at least I don't have to wear a hat all the time now.
The genset might have to wait another day - it's just too rolly to do that job but cockpit lines will be dealt with after my lunch of avocado - I hope the cool conditions will stop them from over-ripening too quicky.
I'm still trying to figure out how to post photos - a 'technical glitch' means it's not as quick and easy as it should be - pity! "Work in progress"