It’s 2100, which for us is the middle of the night!!  In the hours of darkness, with sunset just after 6 pm, there is generally no one around.  Dinner at 6, wash up and then sleep if not on watch.  It works out well and means the we are usually all around during daylight hours, and even on momentous days like today our pattern didn’t change much. Although, unfortunately we were all up a little too early this morning.

We have been sailing for the last couple of days with the ParaSailor and it’s quite a sail.

We have finally tamed the beast and have been making good progress 24 hours a day with the ParaSailor up - and enjoying the experience.  With winds of 15-18 knots before sunrise this morning we were flying along.

At 6 am I left Peter with a well behaving and well performing ParaSailor.  The problem is that the sail has some very clear limits.  23 knots and it ‘must come down’ skipper was told, and I could understand why when we assembled less than an hour later with Peter on the helm struggling to hold the course.  The sail came down easily enough thanks to the snuffer (and the pole which kept it under control) but it took a long time to reconfigure to twin poled-out genoas (via pole and boom).  We also had to correct the damage that two days of ParaSailing has caused:

The top one is the ParaSailor guy which was winched hard against the pole - supposedly to reduce chaffing!

The reward for our early morning exertions was freshly baked muffins.

However there was no reward for our efforts putting the ParaSailor back up this afternoon ….. and bringing it down again 2 hours later.  The weather forecast and GRIB files had suggested lower winds.  So, the result is that we have stronger winds but are sailing slightly slower with the twin genoas again, but with the advantage that we can all relax a little more while on watch tonight - and find time to write this blog.

So, as I mentioned, today we had something to celebrate - we passed the half-way point measured by longitude (38° 30’ W)

By one measure we are half way there, although we have sailed 1900 miles to date and have 1240 to go.  Also, in theory we should now have established trade winds to sweep us in to St Lucia (with a couple of slightly worrying quite patched showing up on the forecast on the way).   No need for Lynn, Sandra and Alexia to panic we will get to St Lucia before too long - just a few days late (although other ETAs are available).

Reaching this point certainly brought a smile toGary’s face!

And we opened a bottle of bubbly to celebrate with our dinner - don’t worry, not the type to incapacitate anybody!!

Time for me to keep watch  (wind 12-14 Knots E/ESE, slight rain, sea temperature 28.4°, SOG 5.6.)

Peter Newland