We'll see whether this one goes

Bleah! We are hove to, drifting SW at 2 kts and sitting it out - can't headbang into it and the old heave sends us downwind (away from Australia) rather slower than bare poling. Uncomfortable as we're beam on to the rising sea and rolling a lot and the occasional big one comes in from left field and crashes against the boat. Wind also rising and it's raining so we're all closed down and hoping to stay that way. At least another 12 hours before the thing dissipates if we can believe the grib. And there's another one behind this one. Looks like a headbang up to about 40S to get us out of here - tedious!

My Iridium fix hasn't worked, unfortunately. The connection fails intermittently at the first attempt to open the port, which, I think, means that the computer is not reaching the phone. The problem is probably still somewhere in the data kit, which was never designed for these conditions. I think the phone itself will work so if the iridium connection to sailmail fails completely, I'll phone in a daily report until we are in HF radio range of Firefly in NSW.