Wet and Bashy

Twenty-four hours of sailing Bliss...
followed by twenty-four sloggy, wet, hours of Bash.

So it goes on the Ocean Blue.

The good news, is, we are now about 17 miles from our intended destination of Toau.

The wind clocked around to the North East (and almost directly on our nose),
just after I posted that cheery email about how wonderful it all was and then proceeded to pick up to 20 knots, then 25...
and now we're somewhere around 27, mostly.

Well, at least, we got to see how close to the wind we could keep our old girl.
She did pretty well, considering how beamy we are...
I don't think we will be racing for team Oracle anytime soon- but she did just fine.
The best we could do was hold her about 40 degrees off the (apparent) wind but once it crept past that,
it was time to re-think our game plan.

The new weather gribs also forecasted that the Pagan gods in charge of this part of the drink
have cooked up a rather nasty cocktail of high winds headed our way...right about now.

(As i write this I have one foot braced against the wall and my chin keeping the computer on the navigation desk...)

The other nifty looking atolls nearby are out (because of their lack of protection) and our best option still looks like Toau.

The wind being directly on our nose, means we have to keep tacking to make our course and this was going to put us in sometime on Tuesday,
leaving us hanging out in some yucky weather.

We made the call twelve hours ago, to kick on the engine and try to keep a more direct line but the
waves and high winds have slowed our progress, making a daylight landfall impossible.

We wouldn't normally try to enter a pass after dark but Anse Amyot is familiar to us and we have our track line on the GPS-
so, we figure we'll go have a look at it tonight and make the call then.

Here's hoping my next post is made tomorrow morning, while drinking a cup of non-air-borne coffee,
safely anchored INSIDE Anse Amyot!

Entrance Anse Amyot; photo from Mark and Vicki's sailing blog.