Yesterday the bird left mid-morning, after having stayed with us a good 20 hours or so. The bird was not a good houseguest and left quite a mess behind. Eric had a lot of fun cleaning it up.

We had another unique sunset last night. The horizon was cloudy, and the clouds were a blue-gray color. The sky turned orange-gold, and the color contrast of the blue and orange was quite pretty. The sky slowly darkened to an orange-red before turning pink in the last rays of sunlight, all still contrasted by the blue-gray clouds. The spectacular colors brought on another moment of awe at the wonders of Mother Nature. The moon is almost full and gives off so much light that you can’t see the stars.

Sea conditions were about the same as last reported, though they did get better for a few hours. Even at its rockiest, it still was a much smoother ride than in the Pacific. That is, until about 04:00 in the morning. All night there were several dark, ominous clouds scattered about in the sky, all far away from us. Each would give off the occasional crack of lightening. None of the clouds was giving off a dazzling show like the one the night before, with smaller bolts of lightening much less often. At 04:00, Christi realized one of these black lightening clad clouds was moving straight for us. She woke Eric. We view getting hit by lightening as the worst possible thing that could happen to us. Eric used the radar and noticed that we were on the same course as the squall. We could change course to avoid most of it. Just as we edged away we got pelted with hard rain and about 35 knots of wind, but we figured it would have been much worse if we stayed in the middle. Needless to say, the seas became rough, almost the roughest we have been in yet. There were very steep waves. At one point a huge wave of water came over the front of the boat just as a crack of lightening thundered down very close to us. We have never had a bolt of lightening hit so close before and it was heart stopping. It was so dramatic that it seemed like something you only see in a movie. It was hard to believe it was really happening. This was by far the scariest weather we have ever been in.

There were more clouds coming at us. Eric spent a full 8 hours maneuvering Kosmos in an effort to avoid more scary storm clouds. According to the radar we missed some of the bigger squalls, but we still had several clouds pass over us, bringing heavy rain. Each time we prayed that we didn’t get struck by lightning. We do have a lightning ground, but we would rather not test it.

It took the seas a few hours to calm back down once the squalls passed, going from miserable to OK. It’s rockier right now than we would like, but the ride is good compared to the South Pacific. The good news is that it has cooled down to a comfortable temperature.

We are both really tired. We get a full 8+ hours of sleep each day, but in several naps instead of one long sleep. We are rested enough to be fully functional when awake, but still tired. We are both so ready for a full night of sleep.

And here are a few answers to blog questions:

Q: Did you make it to the Pirates something Restaurant on Bora Bora and see the Manta rays that swim in circles there at night?
A: No, we missed that place. Sounds like it would have been nice.

Q: At Chefs in Fiji, did they sing for you for your anniversary?
A: Much to our disappointment we got no song at Chef’s. We told them it was our anniversary AND that we were leaving Fiji the next day to go to Vanuatu, and still no song. Guess Adrienne was special.