Day 83, Year 5: Passage to Cochin, Day Two
Date: Sunday, January 17, 2010
Weather: Clear Skies, E Winds 10
Latitude: 07 degrees 41.542 minutes N
Longitude: 095 degrees 58.231 minutes E
Miles to Go: 1,399

What a night we had for our first day of this passage. It was literally the worst passage night we have ever had, but all is well now and as I write this log we are moving along on much calmer seas with main and spinnaker. In the late afternoon, the winds have stayed somewhere between 6 and 12 knots and it is directly behind us. So we are just gently rolling along. But back to last night’s story. During Mark’s watch from 7-10 pm we had about 10-12 knots of wind, so we had the full headsail out and the main was not reefed. We assumed that the winds would remain the same during the rest of the night, but shortly after I came on watch, I started seeing lightening in the distance. The sky looked clear and I could see no dark clouds, so I just continued as we had been. Then just before midnight, all hell broke loose. We went from 12 knots to 30 in about two seconds and I could hear clanging and banging below as things were thrown every which way. I had a very hard time getting the boat back in control and just headed straight downwind. Since Mark was basically thrown out of bed, he came up to help but there was nothing we could do while the winds were so strong and seas so rough. The first squall subsided but I was confident that it was just the calm before another one hit. We just got the headsail reefed and were ready to reef the main when we were hit again. This time we got gusts to 40 but I tried my best to keep us running with the wind. That meant we were headed SW at a very fast clip when we really wanted to go directly W, but we had no other choice. This time there was no calm, but when the winds calmed to 20-25 Mark was up on deck getting the main reefed. Finally, we felt a little more in control and jibed back to the NE to make up for the side trip south. I have never needed Mark to stay up for more than a short period to adjust sails during a night watch, but last night it was 1:30 before he got back to bed and we were still roaring along with 20-25 knot winds. I stayed on watch until 3:00 and then it took us thirty minutes to readjust sails and jibe once again. This year we installed a new gadget called a Jibe-Easy and it sure earned its worth last night. Neither of us got a lot of sleep last night, but we did nap today and are hoping for a better night tonight. And you aren’t going to believe this. Constance was about 5-6 miles behind us last night, got hit with a little squall at 11 pm and then had winds no higher than 20 for the rest of the night. This morning they were about 6 miles ahead of us and further north, but Lynne just called and said that they can see us behind them now, so we have caught up during the day.

We have had some strange wave conditions that even Constance has never seen on this path in their trips to and from the Chagos. We go through areas that look like overfalls. The swells have hundreds of little peaked white caps on them that rise upward like little spouts. I have called this the dancing waters, but we have no idea what is causing this. We had a nice encounter with dolphins this morning and have had a good day. So we will reef the main at dusk, bring in the spinnaker and pole out the headsail for the night. We will be prepared for those squalls if they come again. No more wild rides!