With about 30 miles to go to Nome, all was going nicely... with the assistance of the current we were almost making course for Nome with the Northerly wind too!!! The wind was slowly but steadily easing and after contemplating for a while I decided it was time to shake out the last reef. That done, I headed back to the cockpit just in time for Ray to throw a wobbly as the wind came in front of us and involuntarily tack us, oh bad Ra-ay, so I took the tiller and went for a donut back on to course, but as Berri turned so did the wind, following us all the way round, so stopped turning us and tacked sails, just getting the headsail across when suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, we get knocked flat by 30 knots of wind!!!! totally barmy!!! and so typical that I get caught out with full sail up too... anyway dumped the main, put some, then all headsail away and the wind died off back to its original 15 knots, only now from the SSE and made sure we were pointing back towards Nome again... are you keeping up with all this??? yes, it was keeping me on my toes too!!! so main all the way out, preventer firmly attached, then headsail fully back out too, then wind wants to veer to the SW, so gybe, then it wants to go back to the SE so gybe back. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr wind gods, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!! Pause, tidy the mess of reef lines, furler line and numerous sheets now littering the cockpit and grrrrrr some more!!! After I'd had enough grrrrring and started chuckling to myself again at the mentalness of it all, it was time to wake Kimbra (funnily enough she was already awake!!!) for watch and check course!!! On the money for Nome, with wind directly up the chuff now... extremely frustrating, and anyway after a bit more playing with the sails we are now motor-sailing directly for Nome with about four knots of wind from the North again!!! Mental!!!
I'm going for a five am eta- maybe followed by a couple of hours sleep and then I reckon, scrambled eggs and bacon for brekkie to set us up for the busy day of work (and 4th July celebrations!!!) ahead!!!
Lots of love
McQueen
xxx
ps. You know how people steal gnomes from other peoples gardens and take them to famous landmarks round the world and send pics back??? well, I was wondering, do you think anyone has ever stolen a gnome and taken it to Nome??? That's what I'd do if I were to stumble across a stolen gnome: take him to Nome, then send him home!!!!
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see:
http://www.sailmail.com
