Position: 18 degrees, 48 minutes south; 179 degrees, 06 minutes east

The spinnaker rescue

Ahh, it wasn't that bad...

You better believe I wore my tether up there!

That’s what Lisa said when after setting the jib successfully for the first time in two days and seeing it give us some good speed in winds in the high 20s, yet another weather system descended on us and slammed us with winds up to 40 knots. We had to roll the jib back in. Then it started raining. I’m waiting for the lightning followed by the waterspout at this point.

This has been the worst two weeks of weather I’ve ever had to sail in. Not fun. Both Ann and I agree though that having Lisa on board has been fun and she’s a real asset as crew. For example-today in one of the particularly vicious gusts (and while I was attempting to sleep on my “off” shift) Lisa noticed a wave that had come over the bow (just one you ask? Ha, one of the hundreds) broke the spinnaker bag from its clips on the lifelines on the bow and it was floating around on the foredeck untethered getting ready to make the big escape over the side. Without any thought to her personal safety or dignity, she crawled along the leeward deck-which was mostly underwater at this point-reached said bag (which is almost as large as she is) and did an imitation of an aquatic bear hug on the thing, patiently waiting for me to put on foul weather gear and come up to help. As I made my way to the foredeck I could see her laying on top of the bag taking breaths of air between the solid water coming down the deck. Well, we’ll have to get some pictures up soon to show at least the aftermath of where we were. Both of us were soaked despite wearing our foulies and she spent some time later pouring water out of her boots.

When Ann asked her how she felt about her adventure Lisa’s comment-“oh, we learned that in survival school at the Air Force” Well, thank you Lisa for saving our spinnaker!