Next day saw us all a little more settled (photo actually from day before as Air drop won’t work with my phone and pics!). Here is Will emerging from the depths, smile on his face, which is pretty much how we all felt with the rising sun. Skipper had us into a watch system: Anthony & WJ on Red Watch, Ali & Will on White Watch, Sven & Chris on Blue Watch. Watches rotate over five changes in 24 hours: 0800-1400 (responsible for lunch & washing up), 1400-2000 (responsible for dinner & washing up), 2000-0000, 0000-0400, 0400-0800 (responsible for breakfast & washing up). Skipper gets up more or less each watch change to settle new watch in. At sundown tricolour is turned on at the mast top: white light to show sailing and red port and green starboard lights. Crew up in cockpit at night (sitting around where Anthony’s feet are in photo), must all wear life jacket, clip on with harness , and wear personal locator beacon (PLB), so Cherish can find them if they go for a dip! After a while and at end of a night shift the life jackets can feel quite heavy. We are therefore trying stretches and boat yoga (more later) to build up our stamina. We passed our first way point at 28o52”80N 016o16”77W.

We have a satellite phone and can use it to connect to the internet to send/receive emails (petersgray {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com - not attachments, though) and to download was are called grib files and weather maps (synoptic charts) which give us up-to-date weather information. From these we decide to head due west, although a direct course to St Lucia is south of that.