It’s 01.00 and we are skipping along nicely again. Before he went off watch for some much needed rest, Robert and I discussed weather and winds and spinnaker yes or no. We wisely decided to stick to white sails for now as this lighter patch could last all night. The wind is fluky – up and down and ranging between WNW and WSW and 10 kts to now suddenly 15 again! Robert had been wrestling with that problem for 3 hours and it took me a cuppa finest Azores Tea when I came on watch (thank you Robert – as thoughtful as ever!) to think of trying to get the boat to sail herself at a wind angle! This was something that Bill and I did a lot on way south to the Azores and it worked well then.  So I set her at 110 off the port bow, and now we are romping along even if our destination looks like indecision between North Wales and Cherbourg! But we are better off staying NW of the rhumb line as the forecasts have it quite a lot lighter further south (hopefully slowing the oppo….!!) The main thing is to keep moving through this lighter bit.

It has been getting busier with shipping – I think we have seen 3 ships in the last 12 hours versus nothing in the previous 3 days.

We have been achieving a fairly regular daily run of +/- 150nm so on the basis of that continuing, we should reach Lizard about midnight Tuesday into Wednesday. That might mean an early morning arrival in Falmouth. It depends so much on whether this wind fills in a bit stronger over the next 48 hours.

It is a lovely night but I think noticeably cooler now (trousers, T shirt + hoodie HH fleece + smock) but it is so nice to sit in the companionway looking at the stars and the moon which will set soon and the waves. The sea is a bit confused which does pose a problem as it shakes all the wind out of the sails every so often. Hopefully it won’t stop Robert sleeping a bit!

More tomorrow! I mean later today!

Love to all

Tim and Robert