Day 4 - Noon June 13^th to Noon June 14^th

We seem to be getting more than our fair share of squalls at the moment. They bring plenty of rain but that’s ok – we can take turns at getting wet and it means we’re getting some great rainbows. The worst thing is the sudden increase in wind strength as the squall arrives which means you have to reduce sail area. They don’t seem to last more than about 20 minutes and then we’re through them. That means more work as you increase sail area again to keep up the speed.

We’ve probably had a dozen or so today which have kept us busy.

The main problem is definitely not getting enough sleep. We’re beating to windward and the boat is getting thrown about a lot. The front cabins are the worst and the skipper has started sleeping in the saloon where the boat’s motion is more forgiving. The wind direction is pushing us too far south. Unless we get a favourable wind shift we’ll hit Africa instead of Europe! Watch this space.

Around lunchtime the first of the big boats went past us as predicted. We’ll have to see how long we can hold on to our 12 hour lead over the rest. Even though we were being overtaken it was nice to see another sailboat – all we’ve seen so far have been huge container ships thundering past.

Paul - Peejay