Roller coaster
If something's worth doing once, it's worth doing twice, thrice, ad infinitum. That's the lesson of the day as squalls and marrauding rain clouds turned the once stable wind from the NE into a squirrelly mess. Changing between the big jib in upwind mode, to reaching mode and back, followed by hoisting the big gennaker, almost gybing and then deciding not to as the wind shifted again. It's been non-stop this morning. The most frustrating moment was after deciding to gybe when the wind was almost from the south and then moving all the sails from one side to the other in preparation of the maneuver, only to find that the wind had shifted 60 degrees in the time it took and now I had to push them all back the other way, only this time fighting gravity. To give you a visual image of what this entails, imagine wresting an aligator in a slippery black hole, in the dark, on a roller coaster and you'll have a pretty good idea of what my morning looked like. Ah the diverse joys of sailing, having to go all Indiana Jones before the first cup of coffee! Reptile wrestling aside, it's a beautiful sunny day now the rain has gone and it's a pleasure to be out here. The ocean's blue is back after days of grey streaked with white which makes for a welcome change for Stan who's face has returned to a normal colour too!
