Unexpected change ?

Have you ever heard people say that change gets sprung on you when you least expect it? Just wait till you work on the waters of Cook Strait in New Zealand. One minute it will be as clear as glass and then within less than an hour later it will be blowing a gale from the south. It creeps up unexpectedly and blows its way in before you even get time to turn around and head back to a safe haven. We have had days out there on Cook Strait where we think that everything is all glamour and rosey but then when you head back out again to cross the strait it can have changed just like that, no more red roses, more like custard. Cook Strait in New Zealand would have to have been the roughest and the most calmest seas that I have ever sailed in. The biggest seas I have even been in have been on Cook Strait and that was 10m seas, swell, with southerly 65 knots. The calmest has also been on Cook Strait where the seas look like a sheet of glass and you can actually look over the side of the bridge wing and see your reflection in the sea. Once you are out there you are committed to following through and battling your way through it. There is no turning back once you exit Tory Channel entrance. There is only one direction which you can go and that’s straight to the next port of call. So when people say that they have been hit in the backside by and unexpected change, just think of the poor rail ferries out there on Cook Strait battling southerly storms.