Position: 31 degrees, 44 minutes south; 172 degrees, 29 minutes west (126 mile day)

Little buggers! They’re lurking.

We spent the morning going through our storm checklist and making sure everything that needs doing was done and checked off. In the meantime, the gremlinss were playing tricks. The first “event” was when I turned on the radar to check on a big squall in front of us to get a sense of what direction it was going and whether we could avoid it…the radar had quit sending. Nothing. Arghh! Just when I needed it the most! I decided a reboot might help, but needed have bothered. I turned it off, then went to do something else and when I came back it had restarted itself. It still wasn’t working, but it turned itself on. It did that three more times before I decided to switch it off at the circuit breaker and have lunch. After lunch I tried it again. Now it’s working. Gremlins. Having a bit of sport.

Then, we decided it would be a good idea to run the engine and charge the batteries good and full. We’re not going to have much sun for the solar panels for the next 36 hours and one of the checklist items is to lock them down anyway, so no solar power. So, after starting the engine I noticed a funny whine. Or maybe not. It’s so faint and inconsistent. Gremlins. They are messing with me.

Sometimes people call this phenomenon “automatic rough”. When you’re getting ready for a difficult stretch “stuff” happens.

But I know better.

Other than little disruptive creatures, we’re as ready as we can be. Everything’s tied down or put away and we put the storm sails – two little sails each about the size as a Laser sail – up before sunset. Much easier than trying to subdue a flogging jib on a heaving foredeck and tucking the main away. So for now, we’re motoring until it gets either too windy or the waves get too large to comfortably motor. That is forecast to be sometime between now (just after dinner) and midnight.