Day 9 began just as Day 8 had left off: lots of rain, and at times quite a bit of wind… from a different direction than we’d hoped for… only to die down again and return to the usual trade-wind direction.

When my shift started at 04:00, I still tried to dodge the squalls—only to realise there was no point. There were simply too many cells. Since we were already carrying little sail, I eventually decided it was better to stay on course and hope we’d emerge from it sooner on the other side.

After a looooot of rain—as you saw in yesterday’s video—the breaks between showers slowly grew longer and the wind became a little less erratic. So much so, in fact, that the boys and I even had time for some Christmas decoration crafting. We’d begun a rather makeshift papier-mâché Christmas bauble project a few days ago and continued painting them today.

With all that rain, sitting inside our cosy Akuna felt a bit autumn-ish… just with 27°C.

The rest of the day was taken easy, mostly catching up on sleep. By early afternoon, Neli and Mark felt confident enough to hoist the spinnaker again, which we flew until the wind—just as predicted—died around 20:30–21:00.

Since then, our trusty “iron sail” has been pushing us toward Grenada, and we’re hoping for wind again within the next 24 hours.

We always expected to motor at some point during this crossing—there’s almost always a lull somewhere along the way. We could sit it out, but since comfort is our main priority, the boat needs a bit of motion while the swell is still running.

If it goes completely glassy, we’ll stop for a swim… or maybe just drift for a while.

And as I’m writing this, I’m sitting beneath the clearest, most beautiful sky full of stars. Crazy how quickly things can change. So there’s really no point in getting frustrated with either too much rain or too little wind—who knows what conditions are just around the corner?

Simply take it as it comes.
#thisisaboutsailingthisisnotaboutsailing