Position: 33 degrees, 57 minutes north; 158 degrees, 25 minutes west 125 nm day

We’d be doing more like 140 mile days if it weren’t for these darn squally, lightning filled nights. Unfortunately they are forcing us to reduce sail and go more slowly in between the blasts.

Oh well. Last night the lightning didn’t even wait until dark. A big monster came up right behind us at sunset and started belching fire. Yipes! Fortunately it didn’t catch us, but it was a close one. The lightning went on all night from almost everywhere. Fortunately the ones that popped up in front of us from time to time missed us although we were watching the radar pretty frequently to see if we would need to take evasive action.

While somewhat fun to watch when it’s not breathing down your neck – it makes for a very dramatic landscape at night when the bolts flash – it made meteor shower gazing non-existent. Our eyes were never able to adjust to the dark and the squalls throw off a lot of clouds as well.

Come our watch change at 0800 we were chased by a huge, dark, evil, ominous beast. Took about half an hour before we were sure we were outrunning it. I’m getting ready for a vacation!

The afternoon turned nice though and we had 6 hours of glorious sailing and a nice sunset. But (there’s always a “but”) the squallies are back now that the sun’s going down. There’s a lot of vertical development in the clouds which is the precursor to the lightning.

Cross fingers. We’re both getting tired of this.