1am Beautiful clear starry night - Orion in East and my favourite Dolphin high up... Milky Way strewn across the sky.
A nice mug of tea in hand as I wait for wind to back into S-SSE - will change onto port tack then and wait for wind to rise again later on Sunday.
Plan is to change down to staysail and third reef in main initially, as we keep sailing S, then furl in staysail to heave to in strong wind and then deploy Jordan series drogue when winds strengthen further. Expect to lie to JSD for quite some time, maybe, to let bad onditions pass by in safety.
Conditions likely not to ease up until Wednesday!
5am Cooked a lot of food while seas calmer - found mince in fridge so used that plus onions, potatoes, tomatoes, sweetcorn. Enough for several meals - ready for the storm...!
Tried tacking around but wind had not backed enough -COG became N of W... I don't like going backwards if I can avoid it! ...So back onto starboard tack for time being. Slow going, heading into 10kt wind. Pressure up a bit - to 1006 from 1003 earlier.