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Today was the first day that we sailed without squalls. Last night on my early evening watch we were sailing with the wind coming over the port side of the boat – as we have been doing for the past 4 days. The wind was light – in the 10-knot range and there had been squall lines all around us for the entire day. I was sitting in the companionway just out of reach of the rain that was coming down in sheets.  As I looked up through the clear plastic windows of the dodger I could see the streaks of rain in the masthead navigation light. A shearwater was hovering around the top of the mast but the combination of rain; wind and roll of the boat prevented it from finding a perch.  The rain was slacking off along with the wind. The passing of a squall line almost always push wind in front of it and leaves light or no wind in its path. Tonight was a no wind kind of squall and I started the motor and throttled up to 1500 rpm and we were making 5 knots over the water. I could have sat and waited for the wind to fill back in, but squall also leave confused seas and the boat was rolling willy-nilly slapping the sails back and forth. In little less the half an hour the wind started to fill in. I unfurled the jib to test it there was enough wind to support a good sail. There seemed to be. I throttled back the engine and was preparing to shut it down when the breeze went ice cold. In a matter of seconds the light breeze had increased like the opening of door and the boat was heeling and acceleration across the water. With over 20 knots of wind, the boat had too much sail up so I move back to furl the jib. K2 came up on deck about that time and helped me roll the jib in about 2/3rds its original size. Soon the boat was stable again and we were skipping across the waves at 9 to 10 knots. The rain had started again and I slumped down into the companionway to rest. I had only been sitting there a few moments when I heard a clunk, clunk on the right, starboard side of the boat. I thought about ignoring but thought that might keep the sleeping crew awake to I went down below to see where the noise was from. I seemed to be coming from a locker behind the settee where K2 was sleeping. I woke her and she thought was from a locker in the aft-stateroom. At this point I was pretty sure it was not something inside the boat so I sprang out into the cockpit and turned my headlamp on and scanned the starboard deck. To my horror, the $3,000 carbon fiber spinnaker pole had come unchocked and was dangling half off the deck just feet from swimming into 6,000 feet of water. I was wearing my harness and tether all ready, so I clipped on to the jack lines running up the side decks and grabbed the pole and on hand on knees scooted the pole back to the bow of the boat. About half way to the bow I realized I was calf and elbow deep in water on the deck. The water was the same temperature and my skin so I did not feel the water at all. It was the oddest sensation to see the water press on your clothing and skin but not feel it. I made the pole fast to its chock on the bow of the boat and made my way back to cockpit. Coming back down inside the cabin, K2 and Lowry are sleeping and unconcerned, but I was so keyed up I had to tell them of the pole recovery operation.  We sailed in this wind for the better part of two hours when we finally broke through the line of squalls and came out to clear skies. The same clear skies that we sailed in for the last 24 hours.