[password] rachel25,
[position] 31 35.379s 043 04.079w
[status] On passage from the Falklands to Rio de Janeiro

Ana always likens sailing across an ocean to tiptoeing across the belly of a sleeping monster.
Well today we trod a little heavily and the monster roared.
It was a beautiful blue sea blue sky morning. With 15knots of wind on the port quarter, Ithaka was in her element, the windpilot steering straight and true, the flying fish skittering across the wavelets. We were dressed in shorts, down below working our way through the daily chores. I went to tip the dustpan over the side and looking to windward, noticed a very black cloud. I looked again and it was bigger. It was growing upwards before my eyes like a nuclear explosion
With both of us now on deck, we put the 2nd reef in the main, following the now familiar procedure. It came in a treat, no tangles, no sailcloth jamming the cringles, all done in a couple of minutes. I shouted to Ana, now on the wheel, that I would put the preventer on, a rope from the boom end to a strong padeye on the foredeck which prevents the boom swinging across the boat uncontrollably, should we accidentally gybe. I got as far as the shrouds when we were hit by an enormous blast. Ithaka took off like a scalded cat, spray flying out to either side as she planed like a dinghy dead downwind. No time for the preventer, back to the cockpit and winding madly on the yankee furler as Ana paid out the sheet. Amazingly it came in smoothly, and now it was just the double reefed main blasting us forward, Ana locked on the wheel, rain cascading down her hair and face.
10 minutes later all was quiet, the monster asleep again.
We tidied up the cockpit, mopped up the saloon floor and had a cup of tea before resetting the sails, relieved that the monster's roar had only cost us wet clothes.

[speed] 5.5 knots
[heading] 022 degrees true
[weather] Wind S 16 knots. 0.5m waves. Sky 10% cloud. Baro 1012
[END]