Position: 30 degrees, 57 minutes south; 169 degrees, 44 minutes west (We only made 64 miles today since much of it was spent hove to)

Nice to have the weather clearing.

Riding the tiger is what you have to do to go east. You get right on the edge of the big lows in the Southern Ocean and take advantage of the west winds they generate as they circulate clockwise and move east from Australia to South America. Well, sometimes you get too close! The price we pay. If we’re too far north we have headwinds from the east and can’t go forward, so we are “playing” in an area called “The Variables”. Variable winds in other words. Sounds much nicer and more benign that what we spent the last 24 hours in.

Here's the actual weather fax showing "the biggest low on the planet" according to New Zealand weather forecasters.

Today, it’s still a little blustery with WSW winds of 25 knots with occasional squally gusts, but it’s been largely blue sky and we know that winds are not building toward something ominous. So just after breakfast this morning we released the wheel, gave it a turn and headed back on our eastbound course. So nice to be sliding down waves at 6 and 7 knots. These are the leftover waves from the gale and our weather guru calls them our “gentle giants”. They are pretty impressive. 15 feet towering above, but in general what’s known as “long period” swells. Just big old rollers coming up from behind. They sound like freight trains and occasionally one smacks us good, sounding like an explosion and shaking the boat.

It was so nice today, Ann took her first shower (well, on Charisma it’s a bucket bath in the cockpit) since we left. It’s been a week and I’m told she really needed one. (Don’t tell her I said that!) Previously she had managed to wash her hair in the kitchen sink. Too cold for a shower that day.

So, on we go. We’ve been pretty lucky so far to have such an extended period of westerly winds. Looks like we have about three more days worth before we get to the end of this low. Don’t know yet, what we’ll find when it poops out – that’s part of weather planning on a voyage – looking far enough out to make a change in position that allows you to take advantage of the next favorable system, or at the very least avoid the really worst scenarios of storms and/or headwinds.

Position: 31 degrees, 37 minutes south; 170 degrees, 57 minutes west

It’s 2000 local NZ time and we have been hove to since 0600. We basically used a combination of storm sail and locking the rudder hard over to one side to stop Charisma’s forward motion, keep her facing the waves and more or less go very slowly backwards at about 1.5 knots away from the direction of the waves (In reality it’s a little closer to going sideways, but the effect is the same). The idea here is to keep Charisma going very, very slow and under control in storm conditions and not tire ourselves out wrangling an out of control boat being thrown about by large waves and high wind.

We even put a seat belt on Ann's Pukkeko.

We’ll stay this way until daybreak as it’s still very windy and the sea state is large and confused. Trying to sail downwind (no way to go upwind in these conditions) would be a bad idea for a number of reasons. So we sit and wait. Patience.

The day has been blustery to say the least. We prepared for the onslaught yesterday, so everything was well secured and ready when the wind came. Early in the day the wind was in the 30’s, but in the afternoon the storm pulled out all the stops. The waves got steep, about 15 feet and short, the wind came up measured at the deck as sustained 35 knots gusting to 45 knots and then heavy rain. In those conditions another advantage of heaving to is that we just closed the hatch and sat in the warm, comfy cabin. We’re getting a little bit of cabin fever, but it’s better than the alternative.

I think we’re now in the “passing” stage of the beast. The seas have become quite confused since the wind is shifting as the low passes by to the south of us. The barometer is up 3 mb over the last two hours to 1012 which also signifies the low is passing. Ironically enough the “ride” is the most uncomfortable right now that it’s been because the seas are so confused. Instead of big rollers all coming down from essentially the same direction, little pyramid shape waves made up of several directions are slapping us around.

Hopefully when the sun comes up and shines some light on the situation we’ll be able to see our way to “cracking off” and getting back to our easterly voyage. We will have west wind thanks to this and another low that’s rampaging about down south and we want to take advantage of the west wind while we can. Just a more gentle one please.