47 45 693N 28 11 053W

Dearloves
Mon 17 Jul 2006 13:38
We had rather a rough night with large waves coming at us from abeam, making the boat roll heavily.  In addition to the movement, there was lots of noise, so we didn't get much sleep (other than the children who were totally crashed out all night). This morning a cold front passed us, which we were anticipating but was nevertheless not a nice experience, as it gave us 38 knot wind squalls, sudden heavy rains and rough seas.  We have put two reefs in the mainsail and also reefed the furling genoa. 
 
Around 10.00am we turned the corner to head more eastwards, and our projected course would now take us to the Outer Hebrides rather than Iceland, so things are looking up.  We also have plenty of wind so we are bowling along at 6-7 knots of boatspeed, with the occasional surf up to 8-9 knots.
 
We have put a waypoint in our GPS chartplotter at Bishop Rock, which is just a few miles west of the Isles of Scilley.  Our GPS now tells us this is 861 miles away. Over the previous 24 hours we only covered 159 miles (although if we had measured the dog leg that we sailed, rather than the straight line, it would have been around 10 miles further).  So, it feels like we have a long way to go still.
 
As I write, Alice and Pip are playing a game called Frustration.  Charlie is on watch and Mark is sleeping.