Gryphon II is on its way back to British waters.

We are crossing the ocean again, heading for the Azores, Ireland, Scotland and then somewhere in England.

It's going to be difficult to halt the momentum so we are making the most of getting back to the UK.

With our circumnavigation of the globe completed we have enjoyed spending time in the Caribbean visiting new islands and old haunts from our last 2 visits. We left St Martin/St Maarten, the shared French/Dutch island at 10:15 a.m. on 27^th May in brilliant sunshine after a glorious swim and snorkel in the lovely bay at Tintamarre, a small private nature reserve just off the coast where we had a mooring buoy for a couple of nights whilst we waited for the wind.

The wind didn't arrive, as we knew it wouldn't having listened every morning and evening for the last week to weather guru Chris Parker who has fortunately covered a wide part of the area we want to sail. Champing at the bit to go in anticipation of tropical waves/storms advancing from the south we decided to leave and draw on whatever wisps of wind we could find. After sallying forth and flying the cruising chute the iron sail had to be switched on and the engine thrummed us forward. Well at least we were underway.

Late afternoon, tea-time and 6 knots of north east winds got us sailing at 3 knots which is pathetic but we were delighted. Kindly wind and speed gradually increased but the motion and sea state remained just perfect. We have had some rough sailing over the past year having crossed the Indian Ocean, rounding South Africa and crossing the South Atlantic but this is excellent if slow sailing. The best thing is the calm sea, sleeping without a thump, crash or bash is wonderful.

We continue slowly in lightish winds trying to seek east as we know there is a massive trough to the north which is causing very high wind squalls that we want to avoid. This trough has been around for over a week now, it is unusual for the time of year apparently and is being laggardly as it is not moving off west as hoped. If we can keep east then we shall probably avoid it by crossing below, that's what we're hoping for. The problem with sailing to the Azores is that there is a lot of sea area that has no wind, the Horse Latitudes, so we also need to be careful not to be caught there or we could be motoring for days and using up all our fuel.

So all is good so far. Of course, there is always something to deal with and at the moment it is Sargasso weed which has been around all through the South Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and now the North Atlantic. Here it is in thick rafts and random floating sheets which lie deep in the water. It gets thickly wound round the rudder and propeller, is extremely heavy like trailing large wet carpets and is very difficult to remove, we have already broken our aluminium boat hook trying to push it off. The nuisance is that it slows us down no end and it fouls up the prop of the water generator so our power gets low. Last time it was pulled in after having stopped working completely, it was like hauling in a thatched roof and could only just be managed. Hopefully this will ease off as the waters get colder; fishing is impossible at the moment, we have given up throwing in the trawl as it only catches great clumps of Sargasso, annoying as we rely on fishing to supplement our fresh supplies.

30/05/2015

We've had a good dose of rain this morning and it's dull now. Nevertheless we are holding an excellent course, the boat is steering itself because it is so well balanced and we are enjoying very pleasant conditions after a mini squall when we had to do a bit of unplanned tacking early this morning. The Sargasso seems to be tailing off – thank goodness for that!

Coffee time.