The wind came up last night just as we were tucking the girls into bed. It increased from 15 to 25 in what seemed like a matter of minutes. We reduced sail lickity split to just the staysail and were comfortably moving along at 5 knots with only that little sail up. We were hoping that it was just a wind squall and would pass but it wasn’t, the wind whistled in the rigging all night long. Sleep was hard to come by what with all the commotion and rocking back and forth as the waves slid under our port quarter. When it was time for my watch at 4 am the warm damp wind was still gusty but starting to moderate a bit. I curled up in a corner of the cockpit with my ipod and immediately closed my eyes and fell asleep. My eyes snapped open minutes later and I spent the next three hours desperately trying to keep them open, where I’d been trying desperately to sleep just a few hours before. By the time Michael was up at 0800 the wind had dropped enough for us to unfurl the genoa and hoist the reefed main back up. We’re now cruising steadily towards the ITCZ — squallville — and tonight we have just under 600 miles to go to the equator. Getting so close!
Total miles at noon: 1194
Miles since yesterday: 114
Flying fish, deceased, found in the furled mainsail: 1
Cabbages remaining: 5.5
