Another 24 hours pass and we are now closer to Falmouth than we are to Sao Miguel!  Also it’s my birthday today (33) so I had fun opening cards this morning and even had Happy Birthday sang to me over the VHF by Mike and Paul on Nazca II.

 

While we started yesterday with the big spinnaker up there was really a little too much wind so Mark wisely suggested that we go down to the small one, we did the swap and were much more comfortable, doing the same speed and Wendy (the WindPilot) was much happier.  

 

Because Wendy was struggling in the morning under the big kite I was using the electric autopilot for a while but the work it was doing was too much for the the wooden block that the ram connects to and it split, this resulted in lots of flapping sails as we worked out what happened.  I have temporary glued the block back together but it’s probably only strong enough not for very light-duty use.

 

A large whale popped up behind the boat yesterday evening and scared the hell out of me when it blew out it’s blow-hole.  I woke Mark and it’s the fastest I have seen him get out of bed on this trip so far.  The whale was probably 15-18m long but didn’t hang around long enough to get any pics.  That’s the second whale of the trip and it’s always fantastic to see them.

 

Mark is treating me to a Birthday breakfast of eggy-bread, bacon and beans so I’ll sigh off for now.

 

Best wishes from George and Mark on Concerto.