Sequitur

We were overtaken by the first storm cell at 1210, just after we had rolled in the jib and hauled out the staysail and shortened the main to about quarter of its area. For the next six hours we battled non-stop in a seemingly endless series of towering cumulo-nimbus storm cells with torrential rain and twistingly variable winds. The variability was too much for the Hydrovane to handle, and I hand steered through most of the afternoon with very few breaks. The winds in the cells were generally in the 25 to 35 knot range, and the maximum I saw on the gauge was 41 knots. We ran downwind, keeping the storms and the 3-metre short, steep wind-generated waves in our stern as much as possible.

Shortly after 1800 the last of the line of cells moved on to the east of us and we were left steering east in steep, confused seas and a dying wind. At 1900 we jibed to 150 and half an hour later we were becalmed in sloppy seas. We drifted to the southeast through the night with the staysail and reefed main hauled tight in an attempt to stabilize the roll.

As it began to lighten at 0649 I hauled-out the full main and the jib and we began to move to the east-southeast close-hauled on a starboard tack into a freshening southeast breeze. As the sun rose we saw the remnants of a storm moving away to the north east and thin alto-cumulus and alto-stratus coming in from the south and west.

At 0755 we started the generator and watermaker. The watermaker filter set had completed 15 hours and produced 1029 litres, and still had life left when I shut it down with full water tanks at 0925. This is the same filter set which gave us only 17 minutes in Las Hadas. When Edi finished a load of laundry, I shut-down the generator with the battery at 98% before she started the second load. Upon completion of the second load, the battery was at 96%, having had about 15 amps input from the solar array in the overcast skies and feeding the freezers and fridges and the chartplotter, instruments and radar. The Splendide is a very efficient machine.

We had lowered the spinnaker and stowed it in the sail locker before yesterday's storms hit, and I noticed considerable chafe at the top of the halyard. This morning, before re-hoisting it, I cut away the chafed end and re-tied the pelican hook at the new end, and then I wrapped the vulnerable section in fibreglass tape as a chafe guard.

Our noon position put us with 60.26 miles made from the previous noon, with the total of our daily runs at 685.39. We are 649.5 miles at 151 degrees from Acapulco with 461 miles at 151 degrees to our landfall in the Galapagos. Our closest land is the south coast of Guatemala 438 miles to the northeast.