Yesterday morning it was going to be close. We had to make Ashmore reef before sunset or we would have to heave to outside the lagoon or just keep going on towards Cocos Keeling (1500 miles west). Both Julie and I were tired as it had blown a gale for almost all of the previous day and the boat had been crashing down waves preventing any quality sleep.

During the gale we pulled a reef to slow the boat down and make it a little more comfortable but this had set us behind. We had 12 hours and 100 miles to cover which meant we would need to sail Cisnecito consistently at 100%.

The wind was down from the day before so we started to set up the spinnaker gear. By the time we had it sorted, the wind was above the sane range for even the small kite so we decided to pole out the genny. I think a kite can be a dangerous thing in too much wind with just two people onboard hundreds of miles offshore, so I was relieved.

The poled out genoa worked perfectly. Our course had us headed almost dead down wind and we were averaging 8 plus kts and surfing up to 11kts.

We arrived just as the sun was setting. Not a great time to enter a reef but we had the sun at our back and the entrance to the lagoon is fairly wide. Julie dropped the main and went forward to get the anchor ready as we steamed in to the lagoon. As soon as the bottom seem shallow enough to anchor we dropped the hook and fortunately it set the first time. We put the boat away and looked forward to a full night of sleep.