NOON POSITION 16:04.53N 47:16.60W

Aurelia
Shirley and Michael Webb-Speight
Wed 27 Dec 2006 20:19
CURRENT HEADING 252 DegT, SOG 6.8Kt, BREEZE ESE 20KTS
LAST 24 HOURS 147 NM, 734 MTG

Big excitement of the day is that we have had the company of a pair of whales for the last 2 hours or so. they are about 8 m long and spend their time cruising up and down each side of the boat checking us out. We think they are most likely Minke or small fin whales. white fins, big long jaw, nice shaped erect dorsal fin, haven't seen their tails. hard to tell but they are beautiful anyway. have taken hundreds of photos of blank sea showing where they had just appeared. pretty sure that amongst all that we have some good shots and video
they have surfaced many times within a few meters of our stern, sometimes rolling on their backs to show us their white tummies. the kids (and the adults) have been fascinated to watch them come and go.
hard to think of anything else - captain still short of sleep - though had a 2 hour catch up during the day today.
we are tacking downwind to keep our boatspeed up - VMG is about 6 knots so we are seeing the miles click off and think we have about 4 days to run. As I write we have less than 700 miles left. Some more of these slightly stronger winds forecast over the next couple of days which should hasten our arrival and keep us sleepless.
have worked out that we have sufficient of diesel, water, frozen food, cans of supplies and even bread remaining to allow us to cross straight back over again