Another day in the life of a Transpac Sailor

We worked a line of squalls almost all night Thursday, playing cat and mouse with the moon in between. There is often almost twice as much wind in front of a squall and so it really pays to jibe in front of the squalls to go faster. At dawn the horizon was still covered in heavy squalls and we continued to sail into and out of the rain all morning. Mid-morning we were jibing in front of our next squall when the topping lift became detached from the spinnaker pole in the middle of the jibe - not good! We're running downwind with the spinnaker flying with no pole in 20 knots of wind and the topping lift has gone up the mast and wrapped around the forestay many times. I quickly called for the spinnaker to be dropped on deck while we fix the problem. My harness comes out of the duffel, shoes go on, and I tie a bowline to the jib halyard. Chris quickly hauls me up the forestay. John is steering and doing his best to keep the rig from whipping me off into space as I ascend. At the moment, he's my best friend. Forty feet above the deck, still under sail, I reach the errant topping lift and untangle the wraps as I attempt to stay attached to the boat with my legs in a death grip around the forestay. Success! and I call for a quick lower to the deck. Cheated death once again! Chris has the spinnaker rerigged and we hoist and are racing again. Less than five minutes to fix the mess. Nice work team!

The squalls clear out in the afternoon and it is pretty easy and enjoyable sailing for a few hours. Around 5 O'clock we are approaching the milestone of 500 miles to go to the finish and the skipper treats us to a nice cold beer in celebration. It's probably the best tasting beer any of us have had in a long time.

After dark the squalls return. We work a long line of them, ricocheting from one to the next doing 10-12 knots straight down the course to Diamond Head. Three hours later when I come on watch the wild sleigh ride continues. My watch works downwind for another two hours in front of the squalls. We even see a "moon rainbow". The moon is so bright it has created a horizon to horizon rainbow in the dark. It's silver in color but has faint tinges of red and yellow. We exit the last squall on port jibe and the wind continues to build, which is unusual. We're blasting down swells in the dark at full speed with our 2S spinnaker and full mainsail and we are on the ragged edge of control, hoping not to crash the boat. Finally, about midnight, I cry uncle and get the rest of the crew up to change down. We drop the 2S spinnaker, reef the mainsail, and hoist the heavy weather 4S spinnaker. We promptly round up out of control, but avoid putting the mast in the water. A few minute later, we get the boat on its feet and sailing again - this time under much better control. I pass the helm to John and head for a few winks of sleep. "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" continued all night and well into this morning. Today the seas have really stacked up making steering and sailing very arduous. Between the difficult steering and many sail changes, along with chronic lack of sleep, real fatigue is setting in on all the crew.

Dinner last night was left-overs of three other meals. Breakfast this morning was oatmeal and hash browns. Lunch was chicken salad on hamburger buns. The menu is definitely starting to suffer. We're starting to fantasize about that first meal in Waikiki.

330 miles to go.

-Jeff