Yesterday was a day of easy miles. We had a pretty consistent breeze that kept the boat speed up around 8+ knots. But then, around midnight, just as I came on watch, we got nailed by a huge squall!
Thank goodness for a good radar! I saw the squall from several miles away and furled the headsail, bringing us up into the wind about 40 degrees hoping it would pass in front. But there was no missing it completely – luckily, we just caught the edge of it as it passed. I could tell what was going to happen as I got hit with an icy blast of wind and thought, "Hmmmmmm." As the wind started picking up to 25 knots, we dropped the mainsail, pulled out some headsail, and got back on track. We watched as the wind picked up to the mid to high 30s, and then we followed it around as it shifted from the north.
It stayed gusty and rainy for a few hours. We finally got the mainsail back up at 4 am and are now back on track.
The next leg of our journey takes us through the Torres Strait and into the Arafura Sea towards Sorong. There's a chance of encountering some calms, so we'll pull into Port Moresby to grab some extra fuel. We haven't been able to find out if we can get cleared in on Sunday, and I'm not overly enthused about anchoring outside the yacht club for a night.
I don't like to make broad sweeping generalizations and prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt – except in the case of people who have a well-deserved reputation for extreme violence and disregard for life. In this case, I am very willing to put my political correctness out the window and make hasty judgments based on gossip and rumors. Plus, I know people who have encountered what could tactfully be described as "an incident," and it was not something I want to experience. So we may spend an extra night at sea and arrive outside the yacht club at 6amMonday and get cleared in first thing.
