Last night was bloody awful. The wind decided to be a truculent teenager and do whatever it fancied ignoring the weather bods who work for the Met Office or the ECMWF or the GFS. Don’t concern yourselves if these letters don’t mean anything. I’d never heard of them before we started this trip. 

They are different global weather models offering computer generated forecasts of weather data. When they all align, this is generally good news as there is an consistent pattern meaning the likelihood of the weather forecast being accurate Is high. 

Conversely, if the forecasts are significantly different, it can a bit of a lottery so pick the forecast you fancy and cross your fingers. Usually that’s the ECMWF for us. 

Back to last night. We were securely anchored pointed nicely into the shore, protected by the coconut trees and with no fetch. The truculent uninvited teenager turned up about midnight and our position altered as we swung 180 degrees with the change in wind direction leaving us facing out to sea, with the wind freshening and the waves travelling 13 miles across the atoll. It was bouncy. 

The anchor was good and secure so we weren’t concerned about dragging but the comfort levels were dismal. Grace is big and heavy. Even so, we pitched up and down for a good few hours. We were both up. I did the washing up. Dave cleared away some kiting gear. We both read and tried to ignore the discomfort. Eventually about 4am the wind dropped and we were able to enter the land of nod. 

By morning the wind had disappeared completely. We motored 14 miles up the atoll, making water as we travelled and anchored, nicely tucked in behind a small reef. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a leisurely day. We snorkelled the reef and encountered lots of small fish…..angel fish, shiny blue ones, goat fish, unicorn fish and the ‘toon army’ fish. (That one has black and white stripes). Only one shark spotted. 

I finished scrubbing the hull on the starboard side. This unfortunately means there’s still a whole side to scrub. Essentially underwater cleaning with a scrubbing brush. While holding your breath. It’s knackering! I understand why many boats have scuba kit. Lightweights. 

Guess this means Grace will be skewing to port as the starboard side will slide through the water easier than the port side. I did buy 2 new scrubbing brushes though so Mr Savage can join in.