Timshel - Cape Verde to St Lucia Day 10

Nice afternoon weather but had to rush out to reef while Steve doing evening SSB net, one advantage of being 2 handed being that you can go on deck in underwear and lifejacket if necessary. Turned out to be rather a trying night as the spiteful wind was continually varying in strength so impossible to get the self steering set up properly, wind drops she bears away and gybes if you don't stop her then it puffs up so she starts tearing off up wind sails flogging, so not a lot of sleep to be had by anyone. Crossed with NoLimit (on AIS and Nav lights) and spoke on VHF, sounded like they were finding conditions trying as well. Gybed over to head more south, more drama with switching poles on the foredeck, resorted to the torch to hunt for the line to raise the pole at the mast, only to find it was already clutched in my hand! Funny how at different times the same amount of wind/sea can seem nasty or just exciting - in this case nasty. Course required was directly downwind as usual so didn't even seem worthwhile trying to increase speed to go in the wrong direction. But conditions improved in the morning, steadier and able to set the self steering, then dolphins came to play so everything was A OK. Amazing how dolphins improve morale and tempers aboard - do they know?