Seriously, the minute after I finished my PredictWind update with a notion of ‘our first drops of rain’, we were racing upwind and I had to sprint outside to take the wheel and regain our course. The sky went dark and rain started pouring down. I throw all our books, electronics and cloths inside because it was getting soaked. The simple yet brilliant raincover we made with our sailmaker raincover is now in place. A weird excitement gets to me: this is it, a squall! We’ve read about the local little storms with lots of wind and rain, but so far we didn’t really have one.

The wind accelerates more and more, just as it does when you’re standing next to a big building on a windy day. I keep steering and ride this rodeo the best I can. Boat tilts right, I move left. I’ve grown a serious pair of ‘zeebenen’ (which is sea legs in Dutch, pretty sure that such an expression exist in English as well, not sure if the translation makes sense). Our beam occasionally dips into the water. These conditions are a bit too much for our windpilot, there’s only so much that this wonderful device can do. A wave throws us to the right. I steer back before we complete the turn, and when we face our course again, I counter the previous steering action. The wind pushes us really hard from a wave: we hit a speed of just over 10knots.

A rainbow appears, I’ve always been curious to see the beginning of it, and now I can clearly see it starting just 50meters away from me. Appearing out of the water! The waves are like mountains, we rise and we surf. When I look down from the top, I see flying fish enjoying the long flight they can take at the valley.

As the wind and rain slow down, I grab a towel and clean the cockpit with all this sweet water. Yay! Never have I been happier with rain; sweet water really is a blessing when you’re surrounded (and covered) by salty sea water. I look around and see streams of rainwater pooring down certain places, and I’m thinking about the best way we could build a water-collector to save this precious sweet water.

I brace myself for the next episode and put on my red-riding-hood, which I use to keep the hair out of my face. With the wind coming from behind, this really is a girls-pain. Jurre rolls out of bed and asks me with his cute, sleepy head, if everything is fine. This captain never truly sleeps and is always aware of changing situations. What a hero <3 Yeah, all is fine! Maybe I shouldn’t say it our loud, but I like this rodeo 🙂

Suus