After getting hammered again last night, with 35-40 knot headwinds, storm jib and 3 reefs in the mainsail, crashing along, very bad for the boat, finally today, we had wind, not too much, not too little, in a good direction, so that we could make a good direction and go straight for a waypoint off Rio de Janeiro. Solent and one reef in the main, and making about 13 knots average, easy on the boat, fairly easy on skipper. Walter Greene, the great designer, builder, racer of multihulls, said to me once, “make the easy miles Richie, there will be plenty of hard miles, so make the easy miles”, meaning, when you can go, go, for as long as you can, as hard as you can. Seems forever since we had some easy miles. At dark, put in a reef to #2, and then a few hours later, went solent to staysail as the wind picked up some more. Still averaging nearly 13 knots. We needed this. Here’s hoping it will last for a day or so more as forecast.