Monday 25 July:  Today's Blog by David. 43:23.4N 10:17.3W

Well, that is – literally - what ‘Cape Finisterre’ means…. the Cape at the end of the world. And if it is, then the world is not that big because it has only taken a little more than two and a half days to get there!  Admittedly, we did get a bit of a flyer out of Jersey, a northerly wind that kindly backed NW as we rounded Ushant and we have logged 550 miles since we left.  That is pretty amazing – to me at least. 600 miles left,  so arrival late afternoon Thursday looks a reasonable prospect at the moment – the optimists on board would have us there earlier.

The passage across the Bay of Biscay has been pretty much as expected. Weather has been  overcast and  muggy with visibility ranging from over five miles to less than 200 yards. As Bob said yesterday, thank heavens for the technology on board that has let us live in harmony with the world’s shipping fleets, every one of which seems to want to share the same square mile of water as we do! It is quite eerie knowing that there  is a 600 ft oil tanker travelling at 23 miles an hour  less than 1,000 yards away – but you can’t see it - only listen to its mournful fog horn which inevitably seems to come from everywhere at once and then -  for certain – from directly behind you! Out of respect for these vessels you will see that we have given Finisterre a pretty wide offing in order to keep out of the way of the majority of them.  In hind sight that was an excellent decision.

A few dolphins at last greeted us as we turned the corner. It feels warmer - the sun is trying (but failing)  to break though and hopefully the wind will veer north and freshen soon as the Portuguese Trade Winds  speed us down the coast of Portugal.

We have settled into the routine of life on board  - there seems to be an awful lot of sleeping going on - but it has not been without its normal mishaps. Yesterday, the water  maker developed an air lock that we needed to clear. Today, the sink and shower pump out in the after cabin failed necessitating stripping down the plumbing and reassembling it. That took two and a half hours, although most of that was spent looking for a component that went missing – the system will work fine without it, but we didn’t know where the “bit” was and what damage it might to do other systems at a later date.   

Sadly it is still missing………

Still waiting for the sun……..still waiting for the “blue water bit” ……. and still waiting to gets out of this wet weather gear!   Anyway, the sun is now over the yard arm and so, errr, ….. I have an appointment on deck - Ciao!