What a miserable night - F5 on the nose, tide against, cold, rain - remind me why I came south in persuit of idylic sailing! Mulch and I had the double watch night and it was horrible - we hardly said a word to each other as we just wanted to get through it.

 

Even though we had good boat speed with the wind coming directly from the south and us wanting to go south we just could not make headway south at any pace. So we decided to furl the jib, reef the main and pull it down tight and motor into the wind and rain and tide.... result - a truly uncomfortble night of slamming into big seas.

 

But we are have now rounded CABO DE SAO VICENTE (the southern headland of Portugal) and heading east with wind on the beam. Vics believes there is a storng family connection to this impressive headland but she needs to get the details from her mother.

 

What a difference now  - the apparent wind has come right down as we are no longer powering into it ceating more wind and the waves are being taken on the beam. So we are rolling a bit but this is pleasant compared with the slamming of the night (imagine a 16 tonnes boat rising up 15 foot in the air going at 10 miles an hour and then crashing into the next wave coming right at it)

 

We are now on the last leg to Gibralta - we have done 1040 miles with another 180 ish to go - so we are nearly 90% to the Med. God I hope the weather is better there!

 

I am off to bed now as only 1 hour sleep at best last night.