Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

The weather on our voyage to Lanzarote was what we expected more or less. It's the the more that was a problem. The wind was northwesterly on Saturday and we sailed on a nice reach with two reefs in the main and full genoa for the first night and day. As the wind increased we rolled up the jenny and went under main alone. The water was very chaotic and the Monitor had a little trouble -- certain waves caused the line the come off the drum on the steering wheel, which caused an accidental gybe. Although this had the advantage of proving how well our preventer system works, it did cause us to monitor the Monitor religiously. During this time we were both surprisingly seasick. I have come to the conclusion that scopalimine patches are no longer effective for me. The past two times I have used them I've been quite sick. In fact I wonder if they make it worse, because normally I am seasick for the first two or three days and then am fine,  but this time I was sick the whole trip and I still don't feel great. Jack recovered from his seasickness after about 36 hours. It's been enough to make me question my sailing decision for the first time. I am waiting until I regain full strength before thinking about that further. Both of us are able to function when seasick it just takes much of the enjoyment out of it, like fully appreciating the night sky, the stars, the full moon or the frolicking dolphins.
Once we settled on a good downwind course we poled  out the genoa and took down the main. This allowed us to easily reduce sail as the wind increased. Which it did until there was a steady 30-40 kts. We had expected more like 15-25, and we certainly did not expect any 50 knot gusts. But then sailors should expect the unexpected. Like the jammed whisker pole which Jack found when we went to gybe for the second time. The jaw on the outboard end had been pushed into the pole and could not be released. He had to feed the entire sheet through it in order to free the pole so we could come about. We couldn't use the pole any more which is a pain going downwind, fortunately the wind had shifted enough so we could fly the jib without the pole. Jack is currently working on a way to repair the pole. The previous gybe we also had a surprise. We thought we would use the engine and autopilot to maintain a course while we switched the pole to the other side. While Jack managed the pole I went forward to switch the after guy to the other side of the boat. We both looked up in horror as a huge wave came crashing over the stern, flooding the cockpit and flowing into the partially open companionway. I went back to the cockpit and realized that I had stupidly neglected to engage the transmission so the boat was just sitting there waiting for the water to swamp it. We did formulate a new rule from the experience -- we don't both go forward at the same time. If I had stayed in the cockpit I may have noticed the engine wasn't engaged and been able to prevent the drenching, also we might not both be washed overboard.
Well, the wind died down to less than 10 knots and we ended up motoring the last 8 hours or so, arriving at Puerto Calero around 10pm. The security guards were super helpful, standing on the welcome pontoon waving a flashlight so we could see where to come in. Jack was able to converse enough in Spanish that they also suggested restaurants if we were hungry and made some jokes about how there is a Mexican restaurant but not an American one. We woke in the morning to find ourselves surrounded by mega yachts on a tropical island and after moving into a slip in the marina spent the day rinsing the entire boat with fresh water inside and out. It's nearly back to normal excepting the huge pile of laundry which we can deal with tomorrow. Our US ensign did suffer from the winds. It's either showing a more honest state of our country or of ourselves.