L'Eau Commotion Westabout

8:00pm Saturday 9th June 2018 ( UTC-5 )
Choosing today’s treat was easy and I’ll tell you why. About 5:00am I had the feeling it was time to put the second reef in the main as we were starting to swerve a little. While this was done fairly easily it was noticed that the staysail was sagging away noticeably and also that the furler drum was sort of bumping on the deck. I suspected that the inner forestay was broken and was relieved to be able to furl up the staysail. I then decided to let out quite a few rolls of that torn jib which balanced the double reefed main quite nicely and we have been travelling well all day in the fresh to strong quartering wind and right on track for Robinson Crusoe Island. If you don’t know where that is your not alone. Anyhow once enough light was around I went forward and saw that the stay had indeed broken and it looked like a bomb had blown it up - hence the delicious fruity delicacy in a tube. Again as the sail seemed to be doing no harm I decided to leave it hanging there on its halyard until the weather eases a bit. Incidentally with the tension taken out of the inner stay the lower diagonals became quite sloppy - a little unnerving in the conditions so they were both adjusted up.It looked quite stormy ahead this morning but the low drifted away over towards Concepcion so we are looking at a few days of pleasant though occasionally light winds.