In fact so beautiful I feel I should be putting on the beautiful music dear Lisa made me about 10 years ago and put on a tiny IPOD nano! The only place I can play it is on the boat, but Robert is trying to get some sleep! What a contrast to the sloppy sea of yesterday and last night!

The wind has eased a bit – about 13 – 14 kts but we are still making good progress and hopefully skirting the calmer patches further S and E (which have perhaps in my dreams swallowed and ingested our opposition….??!!) On the GRIBS I downloaded this morning I think the wind should back more Westerly later tonight so we may be setting the spinnaker at 23.00 or midnight as we change watches. The deck light is superb and there is half a moon now so if it stays clear there should be enough light.

I reckon we cross the Continental Shelf tomorrow. It always fascinates me the drop in depth from the 100m or whatever around the UK (only about 40 or so in the English Channel) to over 4,000m out here! 4 Km……. think about it!

And a question for someone to look into: Robert spotted some things floating about earlier and asked what they might be. I have no idea – they have a centre about the size of a golf ball which is white, and the surround is a browny / white sort of colour and looks almost like petals of a flower. Total size about the size of a tennis ball. Any ideas?

All day we have been sailing along with Jac-Y-Do about a mile to windward of us. She has finally pulled ahead now and Robert has been enviously admiring her speed and angles while I have been thinking that they should be a bit fed up after starting at least 5 minutes ahead of us 5 days ago and having to give us time due to their rating! I bet their skipper did not have a shower last night! I think the other one is Bombardino who is also in Class 2 or 3 so not in the same group as us. I don’t know whether we have caught up with them or them with us. No signs of Bliss or Raspa.

About 350nm to go to Lizard. Hopefully the winds will stay both in strength and direction to help us get there in about 48 hours. It would be lovely to sail into Falmouth on a nice evening with full kite up! The repair to the Guy is done – chopped the old end off and end for ended the line and tied the snap shackle with a lashed bowline.

Onto the Parsley Box food now. We shared a lasagne last night (Robert eats so little……. – or am I just plain greedy??!) and request is for sausages and mash tonight! I will give it a go in about an hour!

Many thanks for the messages from home! I so nearly emailed Florence for the squid cooking instructions………! Uh oh…. I bet I know what she will give me for Christmas now!!

Love to all

Tim and Robert