Position 50:15.05N 1:30.46E

We reached our waypoint, off the French coast, at around 0330.  Cold night, Emilia asleep, and it was a relief to turn off the wind.  Wind was dead behind us, so I setup all the preventers and poled out the genoa – this always takes about 20 mins of faffing around on the foredeck to setup and I was a bit nervous of doing this at night, but it was all fine.  We did a few gybes, which was good practice as you have to swap all the pole gear and main preventers over, and it’s useful to practice the sequence.  I am using a Spinlock double tether harness which is excellent as it has one really short strop, which means I’m less likely to end up in the drink if I take a trip.  Wind reasonably strong and speed good.

We had a red moon (Saharan dust?).  Dawn was beautiful.  Emilia finally surfaced and I surprised myself by how pleased I was to have her company!  She is completely unfazed by the rolling motion, and we had porridge for breakfast.  It’s been sunny all day, and the waves are building.  We are both vainly searching the horizon for dolphins but there’s been nothing.   This leg is quite relaxing as there is little shipping for the first part.  Second part we’ve had a lot more ships coming/going from Le Havre.

I discovered that on our 100-mile beat up to Baie de Somme that the holding tank had filled up with seawater through the vent that I fitted right up on the bow.  I pumped it out but it filled again pretty quick.  I will need to fit a check valve. 

We approached the Cotentin peninsula as it was getting dark.  M&S chicken curry for dinner.  We are learning what tins/packets are good!  I think we will eat more healthily on the AZAB itself, but for this short trip we’re relying on tins, jars and packets.  We are definitely not going hungry!  We’ve both spent a lot of the day reading, it has been a good reminder of how time changes onboard; there can be long periods of not much going on yet you have to stay very alert.  I think we have both relaxed into it a lot on this leg.  Wind and waves have increased a lot, 25kts true and 1.5-2m waves, and there is a load of shipping to keep an eye on.  We’ve had a couple of fishing boats converge with us, presumably bored/curious but it doesn’t make for a relaxing time especially as many of them have nets out.  I have called up one fishing boat and one ship to check intentions/that they’ve seen us.  AIS is wonderful.  I haven’t used the Radar on this trip but I’ve had the target enhancer running so we should be standing out nice and clear on everyone else’s screens.