Evening all,

Well finally I managed to have a little bit of R and R in amongst all the storms. Last night I kept sailing in 30-40 knots of wind mostly from the West. My goal was to get as far SW as I could before the next system arrived tomorrow. There was still a heavy seaway and Climate Action Now was working hard to make headway to the south however we did manage to get clear of the worst of the adverse currents. Throughout the day the winds have gradually been easing which also made the going tough. Sometimes I would be sailing in 22 knots of wind and 10 minutes later I would have 40 knots and the boat would be pressed again. The forecast showed for increasing winds up to 50 knots so I wanted to get all settled before they arrived.

After some discussion with Bob (Metbob) we decided that I would sail until sunset today and then heave too for the night and all of Monday. This decision was made mainly because the swell is expected to reach 10 meters. Imagine a 3-story building and then picture that as a wave and you are in a very little boat bobbing along like a cork... Yep, hoving too was the best plan and my preference was to do this in the last of the daylight hours so that I could make sure everything was correct before the bad weather arrived. The other reason is that I didn’t want to end up sailing further into the storm but would rather let it pass below me and then I can carry on. Effectively I am buckling down the hatches and getting ready for a wild ride. This did mean though that I ended up hoving too in 25 knots of wind... Hardly storm worthy, but it is good to know that I will get a good sleep tonight and that the boat is all prepared for the 50 knots expected tomorrow. As long as the conditions allow I will be spending the time resting...

So After a lovely lie in today I actually found that I had spare time... Since I left port I have either been sick, exhausted or simply working very hard to deal with all the problems that have arrived but today there was very little to do but let the boat keep sailing and so I enjoyed the first movie of the trip and generally just relaxed. Today is also marks my first week back at sea so it was nice to be able to enjoy it.

With my extra rest and now settled stomach I am starting to gain an appetite again. All this week I have simply eaten food because it was a necessity, I needed fuel but today I whipped up a master peace for dinner. You may remember me telling you that all the freeze-dried pastas that we organised all tasted the same, they all use the same type of cheese base. As such I couldn’t stomach another pasta again and had been rummaging around to find all the other types of dinners to eat before my arrival to Cape Town. Now after having a chance on land to do something about it I managed to get some Pasta Sauces from the supermarket to add to these freeze-dried dinners and tonight was the first try out. I am very pleased to say it was a huge success. I once again have a full menu in operation which does wonders for my moral.

It has also started to get quite a bit colder. Its 11 degrees outside now but over the next 2 days this will become single digits as I move south. I have started to gather extra layers of clothing and will soon be putting the heater to good use. It also means that I will be needing to put my full foul weather gear from Zhik on every time I go outside. This is to minimise the risk of me getting hypothermia. I have hung up a bit of a clothes line inside the boat to help dry them out between uses. There is nothing worse than putting wet clothes on in freezing conditions, burr.

And so with nothing left to do it is time to get a really good night’s sleep.