Our old friend, the wind, came back on a bend. The sails are reefed down and we’re flying again. All day we sailed through one rain squall after another. The wind clocked and backed, clocked and backed every few minutes, all the while steadily increasing in velocity. Since we were flying the goose wing rig, it took careful concentration to keep the wind from creeping round the back side of the sails. The wonderful auto pilot is steering for us, but we are back to our strict watch schedule with one of us always at the helm ready to make adjustments with the veering wind. By 17:00 we were double reefed on both big sails and still surfing at over ten knots of boat speed on the growing waves. We dubb this type of sailing, “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” There was no sunset, just grey fading to black, and the wind howling in the rig pushing us towards Mauritius.
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