50 nm to go

Gwylan
Charles Manby
Mon 7 Dec 2009 12:16
It's now a bright Monday morning, we have 50 nm to go, making 8 knots of boat speed but with a knot of current or tide against us.  ETA say 1600 St Lucia time.
 
An eventful night, with tons of breeze, a gybe well executed at 0200.  We had been pushed a bit south and had too change.  So it was down with the parasailor, gybe and rehoist to avoid a last minute wrap to the chute.  Had a couple of other boats in sight but left them behind.  Only 15 nm behind our big sister an Oyster 82 which is good stuff for us.  Don't know about Sarabi.
 
Not much sleep as helming was both demanding and exciting with cross-waves getting bigger as we passed the continental shelf and depths went from 5000m to 1200m.
 
Couple of birds spotted so far - we have seen very few on the way across.
 
Will send another email today or tomorrow on the finish. It looks as though we will do 15 days and we had thought 16-18 so that is good going.  Gwylan has been a star.