The 24 hours' run to 1200 hrs (1500 UTC) was 194 miles, a very pleasing start.  We kept the spinnaker up all afternoon yesterday but took it down at dusk, relying on two thirds of our genoa (plus full mainsail) overnight.  Last night there was a full moon and it was so bright that the sky looked blue and only a few planets were visible - it was too light to see stars.  We had no rain and lovely sailing conditions. 

 

We caught a large fish yesterday afternoon but it got away, which was annoying, although we have no room in the fridge at the moment as it is fully stocked for the Atlantic crossing.  We have also seen some of the sailing jellyfish which we didn't attempt to catch as they are not such good eating.

 

Today we have had SW force 5-6, which together with some nice surfing waves, frequently gave us over 11 knots and once I saw 14 knots of boat speed.  It gusted up to 30 knots a few times and we decided to get the spinnaker down in case the wind rose further.  Currently we are doing 8 knots on a broad reach with poled-out genoa, in true cruising style.  Charlie is asleap, the children are beading and Geoff is reading a magazine while on watch.  There is not much to see other than miles and miles of sea.  It is very hot and sunny.  We have the fishing lines out but no bites so far today.

 

Listening to the weather advice broadcast on the SSB yesterday afternoon, there is a tropical storm developing which is expected to track north up the eastern seaboard of the USA.  However, the advice to all boats heading east from Bermuda is that the conditions will be good for them, so we are continuing on a rhum-line (great circle) course towards the Azores.  On our last crossing of the Atlantic there were two hurricanes while we were mid-ocean and we were thankfully unaffected, other than in the first case having no wind because Delta had destroyed the trade winds of the Azores High weather system, and in the second case, we had big waves from Epsilion.

 

We heard Dan from Koshlong talking to Herb (the weather router) - they had just left Nassau and had decided to stop off for a few days in Grand Bahama rather than continue north and potentially get caught up in the storm.

 

The bad news is that Alice was seasick early this morning.  We had really thought she was over it, but apparently not.  She has not been sick for so long. Anyhow, she seems fine now and has spent plenty of time down below today, without any adverse consequences.