Day 5

Pemandia
Peter Fabricius
Wed 18 May 2016 07:17
45:12.6N 11:18W

Another tough night. I seem to have supper and then go to sleep quite early. No planned reason, just that I feel tired. Last night as usual I ate at around 1900 and went to sleep at around 2030, with my clock set for midnight. All well at that stage. Hard on the wind, reefed but comfortable. I sat up in the cockpit for a few minutes enjoying it then set the clock for 0400. However before then I was up as we slammed off big waves. It took a while to get dressed up and then it was a battle to feed quite a lot more main and take a couple of rolls in the Genoa as well. It was top end of Force 6 and the only nice this was the moon tiring to shine through the cloud. Maddeningly the wind instrument seems not to like strong wind and showed rubbish (it has done this before and is now on a final warning). That made it difficult to set sails and course to best effect. However after about an hour we seemed more comfortable although not on an ideal course.

I slept a reasonable amount more and was up by 0615. Everything takes ages in this weather - I am not as agile as I used to be. Tea cereal and some blueberries took over half an hour!

Anyway, now we are back on course, a bit more sail set, although wind still F5-6 and going almost in the right direction. I have sailed413 miles, about 750 to go and nearest land (don't think about it) is NW corner of Spain, 170 miles away.

On, on!

Peter