Saturday, June 18 We are tired, and had a wild night last night. I wrote a letter to my friend Bob,, and that will serve as tonight's blog. All is well. We just got spanked a little bit, and I need a night off. So, enjoy:

Well, we're still here, but boy, what a night. The wind and seas were fierce, and we caused ourselves a little trouble in it. When it got above 35, I said, "Ok, let's heave to." So, we dressed on, and went outside to do it. Center main, make sure headsail does not come back past the mast, )it was pretty tiny at this point), bring it in close hauled, tack, don't release the sheet, lock wheel opposite, and you're good. We've done it dozens of times. That is how we fuel up while underway. But the seas were so big, and so steep, that it did not work. It sort of felt like we were hove to, but then we would be on our ear from the sea. Or the next wave would knock us over the other way, and we would be sailing again, but with a locked wheel. It was really pretty frightening, and I was thinking, "Great, now what do you do?" So, we just ran with it, and got away with it. The max gust I saw was 38, but there were many of them, and 36 to 38 was very stable for about three hours. Our barometer registered 999. That seemed pretty low to us.

It's now Saturday, 1600, Our position is N50 39, W166 45, the wind is 22 from west, and it goes up and down, but is staying in the low 20s. The seas are still a menace and knock the boat around a lot. But we are doing ok. After our deck excursion, Elisabeth was pretty wet (very cold water), so I put her to bed. I had been wearing the smock to my dry suit, so I was dry as toast. Love that dry suit. There had been plenty of water being dumped on us while we worked. We should have just stayed where we were and we wouldn't have had so much fun, but heaving to seemed like such a good idea. Maybe the headsail was too small, but I had let a little out with no difference, so I really do think it was the seas. Steep, powerful, close together, just awful. The cabin was also a mess. While being on our ear, we got water from somewhere, and had a floating floorboard in the galley. So, the bilge pump took care of the water, and we had a little mopping session and found that water had visited our pots and pan storage under the oven.

It is interesting that right at the beginning of all of this, we got an AIS contact who did not show up until less than 1 MILE. I was immediately on the radio (handheld) with him, asking if he might take a couple of degrees to port while I did the same. Happily, he answered right away, said he saw me, we saw him visually, very clear and there was ultimately no crisis, but it is very disturbing that we didn't get anything on the AIS until so late.

We knew an Italian guy named Leo when in New Zealand and Fiji. He said about a beautiful Norwegian boat that everyone drooled about: "Yes, beautiful, but it's not a combat boat. You have to have a combat boat." A combat boat. Our little Proximity was there for us, and she weathered it very well once we let her do what she could, all while taking us on course. We are making perfect course at about 5.5 knots. So, that was our night and morning. I have since had a nice 1.5 hour nap, Elisabeth is on her second nap, so we are staying rested. While I napped, she was out trimming the sails, keeping our course good. After all of this excitement. She gets the prize in my book. Oh, but when she did, I saw that she wore her dry suit jacket like I did. They are amazing. They are dry suits made in Finland that have a jacket (smock) and pants with waterproof feet in them. The smock has rubber cuffs and neck, and you do not get any water in on your under garments. The pants zip to them for a complete immersable dry suit. Then you have an insulated liner that allows it to serve as a survival suit should you go swimming. Ursuit is the maker, and they make lots of working dry suits for the North Sea and Baltic,, as well as for divers. Good company. So dry suit and combat boat. Good tools! Mind if I make this the blog? I really don't have the energy to do a blog tonight. I just want a little rest! Oh, we didn't run the engine today, other than to assist while changing tacks, heaving to , etc., the wind generator had plenty of good material to work with.

That's kind of the atmosphere here right now. A beautiful feeling not unlike that beautiful song. It fits so well that we listened to it a few times today. And we just held each other while we did. Be Excellent to Each Other! Rod and Elisabeth,

"Your Rock and Roll Argonauts" "Les Pirates d'Honneur"