November 7, 2006, Tuesday - 35.20N, 66.49W

The winds built thoughout the night. By 7am we had both the main and the genoa reefed. By early afternoon, we’d put the second reef in the main as the winds continued to build to 25-35 kts, coming directly from the SE, the direction we needed to go. We were about 160 miles from Bermuda. If we could make good time, we would get in by Wednesday night. But beating into a headwind was going to make for a much slower passage. By then the seas were also starting to build, so we put a call into Commanders’, our weather routing service, just to make certain that there were no significant changes to our pre-departure forecast. Commanders advised us to make all possible speed for Bermuda. We got off the phone and Bill, Sten and I looked at each other like, “well, duh, what else are we doing out here?” As Lenore continued her hunger strike down below, we rigged the third reef.