Friday 5th January

At Sea

We spent the day cleaning up the boat, both inside and out. Washing off all the salt in the cockpit and cleaning the glass enclosure, it certainly made for a less sticky environment. The weather forecast was telling us that the winds would be 15 knots in the late afternoon and dropping overnight for our passage, so based on this we decided to leave for Luperon (Dominican Republic) around 16.30hrs, hopefully arriving there at sunrise. To begin with the seas were very lumpy as we had to bash into them for the first 2 miles but the wind was fine. Then we turned onto our route and the winds grew and grew, and the seas whilst coming onto our beam managed to multiply and grow also. We put out a small amount of jib and motor sailed, holding on at times for grim death. We had the wind indicator showing up to 31 knots and at one point a wave hit us that was so huge it went over the top of the boat swamping us, thank goodness the “glass enclosure” held up even if everything, including the pair of us, inside were drenched. Not to put too fine a point on it I have to say it was a horrid night, not one we want to repeat –EVER