Storms Galore

It all started around 3:15am. I had just gone back to bed when it started raining. I don't mean raining but more like absolute torrential downpour. All the hatches were open allowing the monsoon to enter the dry cabin. This drowning was accompanied with a sudden wind change. The direction switched and it jumped from 15-20 knots to 30 (which is about 40mph). Mama and I ran to the cockpit to help Papa with the sails while Nora jumped up and started closing hatches and securing everything that had flown across the cabin. Within one minute, the three of us in the cockpit were intensely soaked. Finally, the wind and waterfall from the sky calmed some and I dried up and went back to bed.

Repeat at 6 or 7 am. This time, there was a mess of lines up on the bow and Mama went climbing like a monkey to untangle them. She came back uninjured and incredibly wet.

When it came time to get up, everyone was seasick, pretty much everything was wet, absolutely everything was gray, and there was no break in the cloud line across the bow. After waiting in the cockpit staring at each other, a sucker hole appeared. Things started to lighten (literally) but it was only open for a couple hours. The rest of the day consisted of napping, reading, and huddling out of the on-off rain. Unfortunately, Papa had been awake most of the night and couldn't sleep all day.

Because that wasn't enough, the head sail's condition has gotten a lot worse. The place Mama taped the other day is fine but the outer edge or leg is completely ripped and we can see through it. We couldn't take it down today but putting up the storm sail is on tomorrow's to do list.

We're all tired and hoping tonight will be better but it was only one day and the storms can't last forever. We all know that we're lucky everyone is safe and that we'll get to an island with an airport someday. We also have to dodge an trio of islands tonight.

Latitude: 9.3946 S
Longitude: 151.9904 W

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?zoom=4&size=600x300&markers=color:purple%7C-9.3946,-151.9904