Monday 3rd September

At Sea

20 58.301 S
173 24.199 W (at Midnight)

At around 03.0hrs Gerry and I changed watches and whilst we were both in the cockpit a huge wave hit the side of the boat making it lurch unexpectedly. It caught me off balance and hurtled me across the cockpit, I hit the side of my face and jaw on the winch and my leg on the table as I fell – the bruises were instant, anyone would think I was battered if they saw my jaw line. Gerry couldn’t sleep for worrying about me in the cockpit so he ended up staying up with me until dawn which remained overcast but with a few patches of blue sky. I tried to sleep for a couple of hours once dawn broke, just to get rid of the thumping headache that followed my collision with the winch, by 09.00hrs I was up and making coffee for us all. There was a gradual improvement in the weather during the morning and by midday it was good enough to unfurl the jib fully again and put the fishing line in the water. I went back to bed in the early afternoon as my headache was persisting, it didn’t help when Gerry turned the engine on at 15.00hrs (the wind was now not moving us along fast enough to arrive at Tonga in daylight). At 16.00hrs Gerry yelled from the cockpit for help, there was a fish on the line! First Abigail and then I went to assist; we reeled in a tuna which was big enough to get good size fillets for us all for dinner. By 18.00hrs we furled the jib away and prepared dinner – the tuna tasted good after no fish for so long. The night watches began with us motor sailing; I started the second watch at 22.00hrs and then the wind began to increase as it has every night. By 23.00hrs I had turned off the engine and was flying along with the main only as the wind had reached 26 knots and was aft of the beam again.