The Indian Ocean is big!

Since leaving our calm and comfortable anchorage at Cocos Islands we've been sailing in mostly 30-35 knots of wind with 3 -4 meter seas. It's been a lumpy ride but we're going about 170 nautical miles each day and this morning we passed the half way point to Rodriguez Island. Our most challenging 24 hour period was a couple of days ago. We were steaming along under partial jib alone when a wave pushed us over - like lots of other waves out here. There must have been a second wave on it's tail
or this one just had a very steep face because instead of popping back up immediately we kept rolling until the side of the cabin was under water. The sea pushed the dodger windows against our chart plotter and tore a sunroof in the top of our dodger. At the same time the plugs in our vents flew out under the water pressure dumping a few gallons of water on Ginger sleeping in her bunk and our book case. Ginger didn't mind the rude wake-up but was less than happy at the prospect of sleeping on
pillows thoroughly soaked with salt water. We had our storm stays'l on deck in case the wind came up more and the light lashing keeping it on deck was no match for that wave so we lost that sail overboard. The following morning after wiping up most of the salt water Peter put on his coffee pot while getting ready to check in to our morning radio net. Fortunately he wasn't standing directly in front of the stove when the bottom of his stainless stovetop espresso maker blew completely off and sent
boiling coffee and water all over the galley while the pot shot like a rocket into the saloon.
So, we still have rough seas but there's less salt water below, Peter is drinking instant coffee for now and Ginger's pillows are mostly dry. The sun is finally out and the weather forecast looks like the wind might moderate to 15 - 20 knots for the next couple of days. With the rough seas we've gotten to test Peter's rudder repair and it seems to be doing the job well. Our batteries are recharging after several cloudy days and we will have lot's of novels to unload from the boat at the next book
swap.
This ocean is living up to it's reputation as a big windy place. We can also report that the flying fish population is very healthy. Every day we toss lots and lots of little fish overboard.