Happy Days

Well thank fuck that's over!! Ha what a day we had yesterday.....
After downloading a new forecast after lunch it confirmed what was already happening and it was going to keep picking up so we decided to heave too, and 'try' and relax a little, wind was steady 25-30 with squalls on top. Heaving too proved quite nice, sitting well with the 3rd reef in the main, traveller let out and main sheeted in and a preventer holding it tight. We sat really well only making about 1kt, was nice to watch and then a couple of hours later we had a big squall gusting to 45kts and it was amazing we just sat there sweet hardly moving and the waves parting around us. The squall being that windy it actually flattened out the seas was quite full on thinking our solar panels were going to get blown off any minute!! Luckily it didn't last long, probably only 5 minutes at full force then went back to the 30-35 mark but this is when the seas started picking right up and it was like a washing machine, Sunflower started going all over the place and twice nearly tacked into the wind with the main luffing. I think this was also because we were coming up to a contour and the seas were all over the place and really building, if we did tack we would be in a world of hurt with the preventer and the wheel lashed so while it was still light we decided to leave and just run with it heading north. This felt a lot better but soon after another squall and the seas really were big, this is when I am really happy to have a double ender, we surfed a few but if we ended up side on to one of these is not worth thinking about, luckily this squall just before sunset was the last one and slowly the seas died as the wind went back to a nice 20-25 and by midnight 20, then it was good enough to put out a little bit of Genoa and start heading a little more west again, happy days.
From midnight the seas dropped really fast, amazing and today we have just 18-20 and it feels like its flat calm, nice big lunch of chicken/salad and a beer to celebrate and now with a nice forecast for the next 5 days we can kick back and relax once again, and all of this will be forgotten soon enough
POS 27*24s 161*15e.
525nm to Bundaberg