Position           30:52.34N 012:16.66W

Date                1200 UTC Tuesday 26 October 2010

An even better 24 hours with a 24hr run of 179nm and distance from Gibraltar now 476nm. These distances are over the ground, i.e. include any current effect.  Daily run through the water was 172nm. We have picked up and are favoured by the southerly Canaries current. We are very pleased with the progress and are using this passage as a proving ground for the big one.

The reason behind the better daily run lies in the fact that we have picked up the north east trade wind, that are blowing a constant 20 knots, and the use during daylight hours yesterday of the cruising chute and a poled out genoa and winged main for the night and all day today.

It was tempting to leave the cruising chute up but sense says change down to something easily furled for the night.  This was definitely the correct call and the hour of manual labour involved carrying out the change was amply rewarded by a much easier and safer night with consistent good hourly runs.

Sun set on local time, which is illogically central European time, is about 1930 and at about 2030 the full moon rose.  It really was a magical night, floodlit by the moon with waves surging past in hissing foam and the boat surfing with the larger ones.

Poor old mate succumbed to a bout of mal de mer and her log entry for 0400 reads “Sick! Mate. Oh dear” Quite philosophically she even emptied her own bucket before watch change – now there is consideration.

We had a great mackerel salad for lunch followed by decent warm showers all round so we are feeling quite civilised. There is no shortage of water as we are easily able to replenish the daily usage using the water maker which is producing about 75 litres per hour whilst we run the generator to charge batteries.