Well, those of you who study weather maps will have seen what we experienced this week. We had a great forecast for Vila to Bundaberg, with only a day or so of strong winds at the end - but that was a longer-range forecast, always less accurate for the last day or so. As expected the sail to Bampton Reef was great, as mentioned previously (reading on night watch, counting shooting stars, chatting to passing dolphins and such like). Then, we got a new Buoyweather, telling us of some instability ahead. Then, the Grib predicted 40 knot plus winds where we were about to be. Oh no!!! we thought. This was not showing on the weather fax from the Met Bureau, so we were not sure what the explanation for these forecasts might be. Firstly we called Queensland Met for their insights. Apparently there was an upper level trough not showing on surface charts, which was lumbering around at a high altitude like a menacing malevolent fun-seeker, deciding where to drop a nasty low pressure system. We couldn't seem to get too much further with them on where, how strong, which direction and so forth, so John called Ken Batt, who is (1) our friend (2) the man who taught us Met at TAFE (3) a senior meteorologist in Canberra and also (4) a sailor who understands the info we need and who is always happy to put his neck on the block to give you a definite opinion and advice. It turns out we were at target area, and so we hove to, sitting there for two and a half very uncomfortable days, as the winds went to 30, 35, 40, then 45 and finally 50 knots. The barometer dropped 18 hPa in 24 hours! Good old "Destiny" just sat there jogging sideways at about a knot or so and we kept watch for shipping and keeping battery charge up for radar, fridge and the essentials. Several calls to Ken kept us up to date with the unfolding picture, and finally yesterday we got underway for Bundy again - not before a few hours of sorting wet clothing, tidying up the decks and cockpit, checking the rig and drying out what we could. Also, not before a bowl of scrambled eggs made with the last of our Vanuatu eggs: they were delicious! We were also reassured during the gale by some calls to Wayne Gallivan from Boat Books in Sydney, our chart supplier: Wayne is a friend, an experienced ocean sailor and a master navigator. Today, the sun shines, we are on a beam reach and going slowly SSW to hopefully arrive at Bundaberg before dark tomorrow (Sunday). There are a few things to be learnt here: we'll write about that in detail when we arrive and get to internet access. But one of them is that the Iridium phone was crucial to our getting absolutely current information from Ken Batt (we will now never go to sea without one); another thing is that even if you have a kilometre and a half of line on your genoa roller furler, it will always be two turns too short in a big blow. See you in Bundy! Cheers from John and Shauna PS: Because of the storm-elongated trip time, we will have 11 Gold Star days (i.e. days where we spend zero!!) - what a way to do it.