Defrosting the fridge in the galley was awful. We had big rolling seas and it was almost impossible to stop the door from moving while it was open, despite jamming it with a box of snorkel gear on one side and a bucket of shoes on the other. We tend to keep our outdoor shoes in a bucket while we are on the boat and leave the bucket near the door to the salon so that the shoes are easily accessible when required.
Moe took us off the anchorage when we left Suwarrow and managed to chop the rope holding Bob, our anchor buoy before getting it caught around our propellers. It was necessary therefore to get into the water and free the props. It was obvious there was a problem as the boat was shuddering.
Meanwhile Lisa, a 42 foot Outremer catamaran had her anchor wrapped around several rocks, 25 metres below. Once we had sorted out our own problem, we re-anchored so that Dick could dive to free the anchor. While Dick was donning his scuba gear, an American chap from one of the non WARC boats arrived in his dinghy, along with a crew member from Lisa, to take Dick across to the dive site. After freeing the anchor which had been wrapped not once, not twice but several times, around the rocks, Dick was brought back to our boat but stayed in the water fully kitted out, while we waited for Lisa to lift her anchor. At one stage it was thought that the anchor was again stuck but fortunately it came free and Lisa stood by waiting for us to lift our anchor in the event that we might have problems. All was well, probably because Dick was prepared, with another full tank ready, to dive to free our own anchor should it have been necessary.
We encountered squalls almost continuously during the entire passage. When I came on watch at 4am, taking over from Dick, he had the parasailor flying at 95º off the wind and had performed perfectly through the squalls with winds up to 30knots. A squall passed over dumping even more heavy rain. A few minutes before 5am I felt a few raindrops so taking note of the compass reading, went below to do the hourly log, optimistic that when I returned to the flybridge, the rain might have stopped. As I stepped back into the cockpit I heard a huge crash and of course thought that the mast had come down. I quickly climbed on deck and saw the new parasailor, still flying but in three pieces. I immediately went below to alert the captain who came on deck with Moe and Bev. The parasailor was snuffed and bagged and we raised the main and unfurled the genoa. Initially we had thought that we had become too complacent flying the parasailor through the squalls but it soon became evident that the reason the sail had blown out was due to a faulty masthead fitting which had broken. We are not now able to use the original parasailor or the cruising shute until this fitting has been fixed/replaced.
The wind strengthened and the seas grew bigger. We had 2 reefs in themainsail and 2 reefs in the genoa as the wind continued to blow at force 7and force 8 with water breaking over the port hull and stern quarter. To boost morale we had a fry-up for lunch. Dick had slept badly the night before we had left Suwarrow and had remained on watch most of the first day, as well as from 2am till 10am next morning. He went to bed and slept for a couple of hours. Bev was also exhausted and we sent her to bed after lunch. She quickly recovered and was back on watch again that afternoon.