28/11/10       17 42N 28 05W    Sunday Day 8, today was grey, overcast and with a strong 20 knot headwind! This is not the trade winds, in fact it could easily have been the English channel in June. We made good speed on a course of 280 degrees for most of the day so we ticked of miles towards St Lucia, (and found out the next day that this earned us nearly 90 places). The forecast was less than optimistic, a depression to the north causing sw winds which got stronger the further north you go and lasting until the weekend..with a seasick crew this was not going to go down well, and the favourable winds to the south more than 250 miles away and also not looking reliable after Wednesday, best option would be to sit it out in the Cape Verdes but this is not really an option for us and now we are into the pattern of the voyage it seems a shame to break it, anyway we are already past them. A difficult decision whether to stay north and we opt to continue whilst we can head for St Lucia and review it as more weather information comes through or the wind changes.

29/11/10       17 06N 29 40W    Monday Day 7, What frustrating wind, a shift in the night meant that we took a positive decision to tack south, only to then find the wind backing and decreasing and us heading west. Tacked again and again it headed us. Spent all morning like this with squalls passing through which brought rain, increased wind and 3 degree veer in direction. It felt like we were going around in circles until the sun finally came out and a more constant south westerly developed giving us 6-7 knots on 290 – 300 degrees, still not heading for St Lucia but at least in something like the right direction. Then the next weather files arrived along with a revised forecast from Chris Tibbs who confirmed my overview, north to stronger headwinds, very far south to light and variable trade winds....not much of a choice. Seduced by speed we continued for 3 more hours and then tacked south. And  here is the difficult bit, the decision should have been easy, sun and comfort versus wet and windy, however with the weather came the race positions and whilst I promised myself that these would not matter our westerly course had made a big difference to our position. We were watching Sulana, now in 25^th place but we had caught up 35 miles and had jumped from 190^th to 95^th , we are also further south so likely to make more gains. But then  ‘Fred ’ our old neighbour and well behind us two days ago had gone even further south and was now well ahead in 57^th position. Admittedly we hadn’t motored at all and I am sure most of the others would not have sat out the last two frustrating nights but even so! The results are hard to ignore but I wish they were not published and I also wish that the cruising division was totally non competitive as it certainly influences one’s decision making; for the worse. Were it not for the family I would undoubtebly have gone west to start with and certainly would now, just to get a good result, but knowing this will not be good for the boat or the morale of the crew, I have decided to commit to going south, down to 14 degrees north at least although the day getting there when we will make no progress towards our destination will need some resolve..here goes! Second morning finding flying fish on deck much to the childrens delight, who have been wonderful, watching movies and playing happily. Great cocktail hour and dinner (as always) boat life really is good and we certainly aren’t counting down the days to arrival, in fact Phaedra read the St Lucia article in Yachting World and doesn’t think it looks that good!