Day 20 - 160nm. Distance to run - 68nm :-)

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Wed 7 Jan 2015 13:03
13:16.89N 58:21.86W

Nearly there but still a long day ahead of us and we mustn't get complacent. We are hoping to see land sometime in the middle of the afternoon but it will still be some way off, exciting me thinks.

Fortunately, according to the Grib File Weather downloaded last night the light winds predicted today have evaporated and we should still be able to sail at our 6-7 knots ( we are as I send this) but time will tell. This will be a lot better than having to use the engine but once we are near I am sure we shall be using it as it will be dark and we have to find our way round the south end of the island or that is Plan A. We are still predicting to arrive at the anchorage between 10 and 12 tonight - the wee hours for those of you back home in the UK. We are not sure what the procedure will be once we get near Barbados as we have to radio in as we get near to Bridgetown and obviously there is customs and immigration to go through but whether we will have to go through that in Bridgetown harbour tonight or whether they will just let us anchor in Carlisle Bay on the south side and get some sleep and deal with all the paperwork etc, tomorrow only time will tell. Let's hope so.

We made good progress during yesterday which was cloudy but warm - very pleasant. We have finished listening to Slocum' journey but I found a podcast on the life of Isamabard Kingdom Brunel which we all found fascinating and yet again learnt a lot.

Last night the winds kept up but they weren't particularly squally so the men had an easier night. Think they had one boat - a tanker on the AIS but some way away. Apparently in the early hours the radar was showing something and they also a had a crackle on the radio. So there is life out there though not a lot.

David has just gone to chuck dead flying fish overboard from the fore deck. Total of 5 for last night. We seem to have lost (well we had David just pointed it out to me! ) the lines and at times big clumps of brown seaweed that have been floating past for about the last 4 - 5 days. We not sure what it is and ? whether a common occurrence. Possibly Sargasso weed but we not sure - did manage to catch a clump so have a picture for later identification. Other than that no other wildlife other than a small yellow fishing buoy which David would love to have caught for his collection but just a bit too far away from the boat.

So the 'are we nearly there yet?' Yep I think we can say ' it is just round the next corner' so fingers crossed tomorrow's blog will be from Barbados.