Jan 4
The weather models are now showing a category 3 cyclone, with winds between 90 and 104 knots, crossing our path in a little over a week. We are monitoring the weather forecasts as being so far out it can easily change. If as we get closer the forecast stays the same we will slow down and let it pass ahead.
Jan 7
The winds were light and shifty all day with rain squalls all around us. In the evening, the wind started to die but continued to shift right through 360 degrees. This combined with light winds made for a hard and frustrating night, filled with constant sail trimming and course changes.
The wave patterns over the last few days have changed to large ocean rollers coming up from the south west and smaller surface waves heading in the opposite direction, indicating a storm to the south.
Jan 8
The wind built through the day and that evening as Callum was cooking supper, Saumure was caught broadside by a wave and lurched violently over, sending the boiling contents of the pot across his legs and forearms. although painful the burns didn’t appear to be too serious.
At 5:30pm, with a dropping barometer, we decided to shorten sail for the night. Up on the foredeck I took in the genoa and stowed it safely down the hatch. Then with waves soaking my feet, hanked on the much smaller working jib.
This improved things greatly and only lost us half a knot of boat speed.
Callum went below for his 4 hours of sleep at 6pm. Half an hour later I noticed a large ring of blue-black clouds, like a massive black donut. The centre was filled with rain squalls. It didn’t look nice. After waking Callum, we started taking in the first reef just in time.
Within 5 minutes it was on us.
As we passed into the ring of clouds, the sky went black and the wind hit us with some force, knocking Saumure over on her side.
Eventually, we got the reef in and Callum went back to his bunk. By this point, we had passed into the middle of the ring and the rain came down in heavy sheets.
1 hour after I’d first sighted the ring it was over and we were cruising along at a gentle 4 knots on a relatively even keel. The sun came out and the only sign of what had just passed was a wet deck and our reefed mainsail.
Jan 9
The wind was very light and frustratingly shifty. Steep waves on the nose made headway just about impossible. We dropped the jib to prevent excess wear and took apart our bilge pump which has been having issues again. That fixed, we moved on to the mainsheet. The boom swinging violently back and forth in the light wind, constantly shock loaded the blocks and stretched the stainless bolts holding on the cam cleat. Luckily we had some spare bolts of the right size and it was an easy fix.
Just around sunset, a container ship passed us heading for China. They called us up to wish us a good afternoon and wondered if we were a sail or motorboat. Probably trying to figure out why we were drifting in circles in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The sound of their engines was audible from 4 miles off. As they lumbered past they belched a cloud of smoke, so thick, black, and oily that all 1100 feet of boat was obscured from view before they disappeared into a rain squall.
That night the wind improved significantly. There is currently a cyclone heading for us so we are trying to make good speed to get ahead of it. A challenging task when the weather is defined by rain squalls mixed with periods of little to no wind.
Jan 10
It was a day of tricky sailing with wind light to variable, a heavy sea, and rain that alternated between heavy and a solid deluge. Heavy enough to flood the decks almost as fast as they could drain.
In these conditions, forward progress was again minimal at best.
We had been planning on slowing down and letting the cyclone, now downgraded to a category 1, pass ahead of us.
That all changed with the new weather forecast at 6 pm which showed it hanging over Mauritius before turning and heading straight for us.
This brings us back to our old plan that we have been calling the cyclone slingshot, cutting in close below it to take advantage of the strong clockwise rotation to slingshot us out towards South Africa. Although more risky, this will be considerably faster than sailing north to wait it out.
Around 11 pm, we broke free of the thick low-lying clouds to a clear starry sky and and a sea that was, as Cianan eloquently put it, as flat as an old soda. The light of the Southern Cross reflected on the still waves and Orion did a handstand above our masthead light.
Jan 11
The skies were clear and sunny with a good wind from the south. A welcome change from the last few days.
We broke into our supply of powdered mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch. Not quite Poutine but as close as we can get.