31 July, I left Roccela at 18H00 - I wanted to get some night sailing(motoring). It was a full moon(or there abouts), weather forecast looked good, so off I went. I raised the sails shortly after leaving the marina and was doing a nice 4.5kts weather as per the weather forecast. After 1/2 an hour, no wind... resorted to slave power. The wind died down and the sea was almost mirror like, I was taking pictures and just admiring the view. This wind was mostly dead till about 00h00, Then it picked up to 10kts with a constant direction and I thought we were off to the races.. After 1/2 an hour, the wind was blowing steadily at 20 and gusting up to 30 - WTF! Fortunately I set off with my second reef in place so it was a non issue. The swell then built up, a nice confused 1.5m swell, no matter which course you took there would be banging on the boat and water coming on the boat. I continued like this for some time, then I opted to take down my Jib and get closer to land to shield me from the swell. that kind of worked.. It was sunrise by now and I had 20NM to go.. There were sloooooooooooooooow ones...
I arrived at the marina, put fenders out etc, called them and nothing... In the mean time, there was regatta on for little boats, so I had to do circles waiting for all of them to pass.. Boat docked, I hosed her down and now trying to stay awake to decide if I'm going to set off tomorrow for another 14hr day or take a breather..
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| Farewell Roccela |
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| Sunset over Rocella |
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| Calm waters and sunset |
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| Round abour 21H00, the moon became visible |
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| The sea was in this state till 00h00, then if wasnt! |
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