Made It!

(Photos courtesy of Richard and Virginia on Mandy: more accurately, stolen off their blog)

We arrived in Puerto Madero just before sunset with enough time to put Worm in the water and make sense of our messy Sidewinder cockpit. It was a wonderful day of motorsailing with good wind yesterday, and quite relaxing for us after our first electric lightning and thunder storm at sea just at sunset the day before (Monday, I think). At the time, we were enjoying a wonderful sail off of the coast, admiring a beautiful beach town, as we clipped along. Finally, after getting as close as we could, we tacked out to sea, looking for a glimpse of Mandy on the horizon, lit up with a crimson backdrop; it was our last Mandy sighting until this morning.

Behind us, the skies grew very dark, and the wind changed direction. Suddenly we were propelled the direction that we would need to go by a major gust, and off to the races we went. It was exhilarating and exciting. We heard thunder in the distant mountains and lightning began; the storm became more and more intense, and the lightning bolts filled the sky above us. The sun set, wind came gusting around from behind, David furled in the headsail with great difficulty, and the wind gauge quit. The wind seemed to be coming from all directions and, fortunately, Perkins came to the rescue after the second try! Out to sea we motored with rain coming down, thunder resounding and horizontal lightning bolts all around. After what seemed forever, we found ourselves with calm following seas moving again toward our destination; David fell into a deep sleep, the stars twinkled, and the dolphins visited for about 30 minutes to reassure us that we were safe.