Well the barometric pressure is on the rise again this morning after reaching a low of about 1000 24 hours ago – now at 1008. Beautiful sunrise (quite late obviously – we are now 22 18 west -) and the sea state has gone down a lot after a rough night! We are close hauled, determined to hang on to the westing we have engineered (Bill has routed having looked at the weather) as the wind is likely to head us and increase as the day progresses. We have all sails set and are close hauled – so living life at 25’ angle! Bill still managed to do fabulous chipolata sausages + bacon + beans + eggs + toast for breakfast! Only 1 bean made a bid for freedom! And the dolphins came for a play at dawn as well – all in all a lovely to start to the day!

Last night was tough – the wind steadily rose but to much more than we had expected. We luckily were on a course which enabled us to keep the wind just fwd of the beam, and we put in 1, then 2, then 3 reefs while furling the genoa all the time as well. We had set the staysail yesterday anyway, so that just sits there like a quiet workhorse (plenty of strength but not much enthusiasm!) Eventually at about 23.00 we furled the whole of the genoa so just had 3 reefs and staysail in gusts of 30 knots and a very wet sea with occasionally heavy thuds from a wave catching us. We were managing to do about 6kts like that for a few hours. She was comfortable and dry down below and the midships bunk with lee cloth allowed me a few hours kip while Bill has mastered the art of sleeping 30% of the time airborne in the fwd cabin! Mainly during Bill’s watches we eased a little of  the genoa out and shook the 3^rd reef out as the wind eased to a more steady 23 – 25kts. I shook reef 2 out just I came off watch at 03.00 and then reef 1 at 07.00.

So far the weather is doing roughly what was predicted, even though winds have been stronger than forecast. We will have light airs for much of today but will use that to probably put the yankee on and take the genoa off as winds are forecast to increase again. Clouds are building up again already.

We feel we are making good progress but obviously we have no idea where most of the fleet are – we think and hope they are to leeward of us and therefore struggling to lay W end of San Miguel! We have not seen any AIS of any yachts – one distant ship during the night Bill  said but nothing else that we have seen. Well over 900nm sailed now (921) so about another 300 to go. We have managed at least 150nm every day (1 day of 169) so on the basis of that we should have about 2 more days to sail. Would be nice to gain some places as we feel we have worked hard!

Hope all well back with you all!

Tim and Bill