We are moving! Another day of 90+ nautical miles and we are quickly gaining on the next place we can make landfall!
Yesterday, some clouds warned us that conditions were going to be deteriorating. Today, those conditions arrived and we were ready!
With our staysail and trysail set, we are ready to handle any conditions that could come our way.
While I’m not a fan of squalls, and I’m really not a fan of squalls in the dark, squalls at sunset are breathtakingly beautiful! The colors of the sunset mix and combine with the moisture in the air from the clouds. What would have been another ordinary sunset was a world of pastel and surreal but all in front of our eyes!
Having our storm sails set and ready took the fear that loomed in my mind and shut it away! We were ready for the winds that could accompany a squall and all we had now to do was enjoy the beauty that was being presented to us hundreds of miles from civilization.
On a side note, an easy way to judge how bad a squall will be is to look at the rain coming out of it. If the rain is vertical, there probably won’t be much wind. If the rain is slanted, then that is the direction of the wind.
Do you see the flaw in this method of observation? What if the rain is slanted towards you? It looks like the rain is falling vertically and you would expect no wind, but in fact it could be quite tremendous and catch you off guard.
These clouds were all around us and the rain in all of them seemed vertical. The lack of white caps also meant that there was little wind at the moment, but it is always best to reef down in anticipation and simply lose a few knots of boat speed for a while than to be caught out at sea with too much sail up!
