Ugh! What a difficult night. There has still been no wind and Chiscos and her crew have been motoring for the last 66 hours. Finally about 1 hour ago some wind has come up and we are able to sail again.

We had a very difficult night last night. After dinner, the sea became very rough and we were all thrown about all night. It was impossible to sleep.  We thought that some wind had arrived in the night at about 4am. We spent an hour getting the parasailor up and ready, only for the wind to drop and for us to have to take it down again about an hour later when the boat speed had dropped below 1.5 knots! The leak on the exhaust which yesterday was a mere inconvenience started to demand more attention. We went from having to bail the locker every 3 hours to bailing it every 20 minutes. In the end, this morning, I took off the whole exhaust system to find that a crack has appeared in the weld of the exhaust box about 2 inches long. I used some crack sealer epoxy in the vain hope that it may at least stem the flow of water. To my amazement, it has worked and the has been no more water ingress. We will have to find a welder in Bermuda to repair both that and the header tank filler cap!

We also managed to break the ariel on the Iridium phone. The fitting connecting it to the phone has disintegrated. Again, no fix until Bermuda.

We have fished a fair amount but so far have caught nothing at all - we have only managed to lose one lure. Maybe now that the engine is off we may have more success.

 

Still, the crew are in good spirits despite being a little tired. We now have 306 miles to go to Bermuda and hope that we will arrive late Friday/ early Saturday morning.

 

John