At 4:00 am on November 8th Alan woke me up for my shift, the day break shift. When I stepped into the cockpit the autopilot was on and the seas were almost flat calm. It stayed calm more or less until early afternoon, then the seas became a bit confused as the swells grew in size. We knew there was a bit of a storm coming and that the winds were going to come up so we cleaned and organized the boat in order to prepare. By about three pm we were on a full starboard lean moving quite quickly going somewhere between 6.5-7.3 knots. We had winds that topped out around 25 knots from the south, south east. Tane and I realized we were taking on a sizeable amount of water in the bilge. We searched around to find that water was coming up through the sink as well as the toilet (I know what your thinking, "that's disgusting," and your right but luckily there was no brown sharks) from continuously being on such a hard lean. We turned to a north westerly direction to come off the lean and take care of the problem. While we were on our new coarse we began going very fast, reaching speeds of 9.5 knots. This is extremely fast for Kena as her hull speed is 8 knots. After we solved the problem Tane put the first reef in the main and we got back on course. Shortly after we were back on course I decided I would try to take a nap since I had been up since 4 am. Due to the hard lean and the aggressive motion of the boat I could not get any shut eye. I realized that Tane was again looking for a location that we were taking on water. I opened up the hatch in my room that enters into the far aft part of the cabin to find that the water was coming in threw a vent on the port side of the boat. We again went in a westerly direction to come off the lean and solve the problems of the vent and water in the bilge. Tane duct taped up the vent to prevent additional water from entering the inside of the boat then he put the second reef in the main. Now I was determined to get some shut eye, so I tucked my blanket in to prevent my legs from going over the side of the bed (due to the lean)and was asleep on and off again until 8:45 pm. I woke up feeling a bit ill not from the rough seas but because I got too hot under the blanket. After about 20 minutes and a couple glasses of water I was ready to get on my shift. After a short but descriptive explanation from Tane I was at the helm at the mercy of the Buckin Bronco South Pacific Sea! For three hours I sat at the helm with increasingly erratic seas and winds! Shortly after 1 am Alan came to ride the Bronco, which brings us up to the present. Till next time LoveLife!!!

This is the Scurvy Seadog Texas T signing off.