AZAB Day 6 Fri 7th June - this is what the brochure said it would be like!

Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Fri 7 Jun 2019 22:52
Position 43:40.6N 17:10.6W

Well we knew that wind would ease down overnight, and so it did - but not without a sting in the tail, in the form of a series of nasty raincloud squalls. The first one got me before I had realised what was happening, and the wind shot up to 27kts from 15. Luckily I still had 2 reefs in the main as am always a bit cautious at the end of the strong wind. Then another one came and we were directly in its path. I used the radar to track them, which was really effective to work out how far away they were and whether or not we were on a collision course. So this one was a monster, so I put 3 reefs in the main and just left a scrap of jib, and felt all daft sitting there in less than 10kts of breeze fully reefed down. But boy was I feeling smug when it hit - we got 36kts of true wind, and Nutmeg just flew off at 7.5 kts without a care.

I think I cleared the squalls and got my head down for a rest at about 0500. At 0820 I worked out we were exactly halfway between the Manacles and the tip of Sao Miguel - 575 miles either way, and it has taken 5 days 20 hrs. Not too bad considering how much time we've spent becalmed, and how much time we've spent beating into the wind.

So today has been what it's all supposed to be about - 15kts of breeze, all sail up, long low swell allowing Nutmeg to stretch her legs, and I havent had to touch the sails or steering for 12 hours - she's just sailed herself. Absolute heaven, and Emilia & I have been having those "Aha" moments when you realise how great it really is out on the ocean, and why we're here. This is the sailing I had in mind when I signed up for this race!! Despite the fact that we're only halfway I think getting through that last bout of heavy weather felt like a real achievement and a feeling that we're actually going to make it, and it's not that far to go!

We've been looking for whales but nothing seen so far. Seen very little of anything - saw a ship today, first since we left the channel, but that's it. I guess we're 300 miles from anywhere out here - quite a good feeling. Not often you're so isolated from other humans, on this crazy busy planet.

We were reminiscing and saying how surreal everything felt this time last week - Emilia just arrived from France, being interviewed, doing random pre-start jobs. Feels like months ago.

Friday evening and in harmony with what I'm sure was happening at home at the same time, we had nibble o'clock, where Emilia discovered just how extensive my provisioning was. We are eating wonderfully well! We got stuck into the sticky toffee pudding again tonight - couldn't help ourselves. I wonder if Cartmel would do a sponsorship deal. Mmm.

So back to reality and the wind has buggered off for the night - or at least it's dropped to 7kts and directly from where we want to go... So it will be a game of patience until it shifts round and we can tack over towards the new wind; this will be the fourth low pressure system we will have sailed through on this trip!!