Chantal is always asking me if I come from Marseille, I think it's got something to do with the Marseillaise having the reputation of exaggerating a little.  Yes I admit It, I do gild the lily from time to time, why not, it can make a dull story a little more interesting!  

But what I am about to say has the one hundred percent endorsement from Chantal as being the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Unfortunately I have no photography's.

We sailed from Santa Ponsa, Mallorca at 7pm on Sunday 22nd July our progress in leaving the Island was boringly slow, by the early hours of the morning we were close hauled in 10 knots of wind and sailing a course directly for Port Ginesta.  Mallorca was now just a distant memory, daylight was appearing over the horizon, Chantal had been sleeping in the cabin and was now coming up through the hatch, looking over my shoulder she let out a gasp, all around us she could see giant tornados reaching right up into the clouds, in fact they were waterspouts.  There were three located about one nautical mile off our starboard quarter and another about the same distance on our port beam, you could almost reach out and touch them.  The sky had turned a dark grey, looking through the binoculars we could see clearly water being lifted hundreds of feet into the sky.  We stood with our feet glued to the spot looking for what seemed like a lifetime before noticing a large black cloud forming in front of us with dark curtains hanging down to the sea.  The wind suddenly dropped leaving an ierrey silence, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.  It only took my mind a few seconds to realize this was a squall heading directly for us.  Like someone turning on the tap to a giant waterfall the rain started then the wind hit us, Castor leaned to her toe-rail the sails banged taught and we were off like an express train.  The wind settled down to a manageable 28 knots as I hastily reefed and balanced Castor.  The twisters slowly dissolved into the sky one by one, it was only then did we realize what a close shave we had had and we didn't even think of taking pictures, how stupid can you get.  

The wind stayed with us all that day but the waves grew by the hour, for Castor to punch her way through the mounting seas we had to keep more sail up than I would have liked.  Our leeward deck was partly submerged our weather beam was exposed to the breaking waves.  Castor was being pushed further and further over, occasionally the bow and foot of our foresail would disapear below the giant waves but like an old soldier she would pick her self up and battle on as steady as a rock maintaining between 7 and 8.5 knots even though green water was crashing across her foredeck and into our well protected cockpit. 

Seeking protection from the breaking waves I left our autopilot to do all the work and sat under the spray hood, Chantal preferred to go below, retiring to her bunk so she didn't have to watch the giant seas.  Reflecting on the day's events I started to wonder what I ever saw in sailing maybe I'm just a masochist.