As promised, the wind cranked up on yesterday afternoon. The sea, perfect smooth one moment ago, suddenly turned furious. Wind started howling at 20knot, then 30 knots, stirring up white caps. Big swells followed right after. At dusk, we found ourselves in 10-15 foot swells. Autopilot and stabilizer were working hard to keep up. But the swells was big and coming abeam. Gray matter was rolling more than 30 degrees. Even though the boat was prepped for such condition, there were still things we missed – one hatch cover got blowed away, glasswares broke in the fridge and dishwasher … And the dinghy wasn’t tied down enough, and were pinching on the side railings. We decided to change our heading, so the swell would not push us directly on the side. One of the Cook islands, Suwarrow, just lie NW of our position. It has been highly recommended by follow cruisers. Why not have a quick visit of Suwarrow? So we changed our course towards Suwarrow. Sure enough, the roll motion was much less and autopilot was working a lot better. After a tough night, wind started to ease off this morning. By noon time, there was only 5-10 knots wind. It is going to take some time for the swell to calm down, but at least the worst is over. We estimate to arrive at Suwarrow tomorrow afternoon. [google-map-v3 width=”350″ height=”350″ zoom=”7″ maptype=”satellite” mapalign=”center” directionhint=”false” language=”default” poweredby=”false” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” scrollwheelcontrol=”false” draggable=”true” tiltfourtyfive=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkerlist=”-14.660, -160.977{}cruiseship.png” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]