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.