The Calm After the Storm

Position: 06/15/09 at 1525Z 17 01.419N 103 37.779W

Still making slow steady progress up the Mexican coast with light winds forecasted for the next 24 hours. This morning I was woken up early by my radar alarm showing a squall 4 miles away. I haven't had a squall in a couple of days and I thought it would probably be low in intensity.

The squall swooped down on Intrepid fast and the wind went from 10 knots to 40 in a few minutes. I furled up the genoa and put two reefs in the main. The winds built into the mid and upper 40s so I put the main away and unfurled the storm jib, an extremely strong and small sail. Even with the small sail I was going 6 knots running downwind and still on course.

The patch of heavy squalls lasted a little over an hour before dropping down to the 25-30 knot range. I raised the main with 2 reefs in it and called home to make sure what I had gone through wasn't an offshoot of a tropical depression forming out there. My mom had received word from David Morris, the meteorologist who has been routing me and keeping an eye on my weather around the world. He said that there was a system building quickly and quite close to me and I would likely be hitting heavy wind, lightning and possibly even some water spouts.

Not being sure whether I had just been through this system David was talking about I kept my eyes on the horizon for quite a while looking for more black squall clouds or flashes of lightning. Thankfully, nothing else came.

The wind dropped back down to the 10 knot range and the sun broke through the black squall clouds. By midday you would never believe the weather of a couple of hours ago. The weather has been calm and clear ever since then. Just another day spent making progress towards California.

Peace,
Zac


A NOTE FROM PRAXIS UNIVERSAL:
Hi all, my name is Brett and I am one of the producers at Praxis Universal (www.praxisuniversal.com). We’re the guys putting together “Intrepid: The Zac Sunderland Story” DVD’s. As you can imagine, this is a gigantic project. Along with Zac’s many chores he has recorded hundreds of hours documenting his travels and travails. As film producers, this is like opening up a treasure trove, though a difficult and complex one (Zac, when you read this, set your time codes, buddy!). We sit in our studio searching through Zac’s life at sea. We have watched Zac go from this 16 year old kid who nervously set sail to do something no one else has done, and step by step we are watching him grow into the capable and confident person we admire. We are viewing Zac’s life and his life and death struggles unfold in front of our eyes, and let me tell you, there are life and death struggles. I hope that when you see this you’re going to really understand what an achievement this is. It’s almost impossible to describe Zac’s life this last year, but soon we will be able to share it with you.

As you all know Zacs saga is going to be told in 2 dvd- at this point. There is just so much wonderful story to tell that trying to encapsulate a year and trip around the world in one dvd would be impossible, frankly even getting it into 2 is difficult. Imagine the adventures Zac has had this last year; all the places he’s been, and the dangers he has faced, most of it documented. Unlike most projects of this nature our problem isn’t so much worrying if we have enough footage but more what parts do we leave out, and of course Zacs adventure hasn’t even ended yet.

As we enter the final stages of production, we would like to give the opportunity for any of you wishing to contribute original music for the DVD do so. This has been such a grassroots effort and we love to encourage that. We’ve set up a private email for this info at our website: zac@praxisuniversal.com.

Thanks for being here. We'll be checking in from time to time with updates on how things are going.

Cheers

Brett