Well that was a turn-up for the books! It seems our external aerial IS functioning perfectly at sea and whatever was wrong with it was related to where we were lying at anchor..??!! Anyway its great news that we can continue to access our weather and post updates relatively easily.

Last night we continued to have decent wind of between 13 to 18kts and despite it being quite a chilly evening we ate dinner in the cockpit and started listening to one of the audio books we had downloaded for the trip.

We had another incredible starry night and again no moon to outshine them. Jamie took the first watch and when we swapped over he reported the most impressive display of phospherence he had ever seen. He described it as like the sparks flying from the wheels of a runaway train. I would agree what I saw on my watch was certainly impressive; there were huge shining clusters of the bioluminescence that bounced away from our hull but hung in the water like big burning embers flying out of a fire. It is such a shame there is no way to capture this phenomenon as it is impossible to photograph but it is breathtaking to observe. After watching the firework show in our wake for a while I lay looking up at the stars and it was just as impressive. I have seen 2 or 3 shooting stars on each night of the trip so far... at this rate Spurs will be top of the league; Hugh Grant will have replaced Boris as PM and Covid-19 will be obliterated by the time I get to the Caribbean!!

It was a pretty good night and we all managed to get plenty of rest. Meep came and slept on my legs as soon as I climbed in my bunk but started getting agitated later in the night when things were rattling and crashing around a little bit below-decks. Finally there was an almighty crash from the workshop as a couple of boxes of spare parts went flying. After that Meep settled back down and went to sleep which makes me suspicious as to whether it was the rolling of the boat or our resident evil overlord that caused the boxes to fly off their shelves!!

Today has been a good day with conditions onboard generally very comfortable although it does seem to be whenever I (Magpie) goes near the galley that things get really bumpy and rolly!! It has really not been too bad though and we have spent most of the day reading in the cockpit. I have finished Eric Hiscock’s 1978 account of his 3 year circumnavigation from New Zealand and started a book about the solo round the world yacht race “Around Alone” called “Sea of Dreams” which is very hard to put down and Jamie is reading Alec Rose’s book “My Lively Lady” about his circumnavigation following the route of Sir Francis Chichester.. so neither of us are taking much of a break from sailing! Tonight we will probably listen to some more of our audio book by David Mitchell which we are both enjoying enormously.

Our day’s run at 2pm was 155nm which we are very pleased with. The forecast for the next 4 days looks good for continuing to make decent progress. There may be some calms after that but we are monitoring that and trying to decide the best route and at what point to turn west.

Chicken Penang Curry for dinner yum yum

That’s all for now!!