Note to our mothers: In all sincerity you should not read this update. Let Dad do it and update you on it much later. Yes, I am serious mom - don’t read it.

We’re several days into an 8 day passage and have received word that a large weather system is developing over Fiji and heading our way. We have about 18 hours of notice right now so we’re significantly altering course, heading west to try and get to the back end of a large low. However, we’re still likely to see winds near 45 knots and seas in excess of 18 feet. This will be the largest weather system we’ve endured. It is expected to last for 36 hours. Now, if I were you I would maybe wonder why I am sending out this kind of an update. Why cause alarm to those of you who can only wait for word from us? My hope is the old adage “Much ado about nothing.” I’m hoping by merely mentioning this to you that it is greatly overstated and I can make fun of myself for even raising it as an area of concern. Let us all hope for that.

The weather system should arrive around midnight our time on Saturday which will be 5 am Saturday morning in California. We’ll spend the daylight hours today going over everything on deck to make sure it is lashed down tightly. We’ll try and sleep as much as possible to be ready for extended periods of heightened attention to conditions. We’ll share weather information and plans for altering course with neighboring boats. We’ll check in with the Pacific Seafarer’s Net who monitors boat course, state and conditions with a daily roll call and check-in. Oh and I might return to my Catholic roots and pray here and there in my down time. This is not a hurricane or the like thereof. It is a large system that will pack a punch. Just the same we don’t like getting punched.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Yellow Brick Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.