In the end we decided against another reef as the wind did not get as bad as predicted and the most we had was a 26knot gust. The swell came up though so another night of little sleep. This morning as the sun came up, I suddenly saw how big the swells were - three huge ones came one after another and one looked like it may swamp the boat. But of course it didn't, but I put the washboard in just in case. We had a little black bird hitching a ride with us, spending most of the night perched on our Bimini but it flew away in the morning. We have a horrible squeaky noise in the cabin and we think it is the gib sheet rubbing against the mast. I hope it doesn't keep us awake all night. We did another 170 nm yesterday and currently have 18 knots of wind, a 3 m swell and we are sailing at 6 knots.