Midnight Day 3 - 33:22.36N 9:33.60W 

During the night Fi thought we were traveling pretty slow so I went forward and had a look around the boat to see if anything  was out of order. Going forward in the dark is a not something either of us do and only when there are 2 on deck and we are strapped on. Then one of us will go forward. Any way I had our spot light and when I shone the torch in the water hundreds of little squid jumped up from everywhere, it was sort of eerie. Anyhow check out the unlucky little one that landed on deck, I wanted to eat him but I was not aloud to, I guess probably a good thing the little sucker had dried out on one side as it was.

As the day went on the sea state began to increase as did the wind and before long we had a lovely 20 Knots of wind.

Over night we reefed the sails in just in case and cruised along nicely.

We downloaded the weather from the Satellite phone and as expected the long range forecast had not really change only gotten worse so I reefed in the sails right down, but as you would have it I got speed hungry again and rolled then back out witch was all well and good for a bit and then the storm hit us out of know where. The wind went from 20 Knots gusting up to 40 in about 1 minute. Believe me I rolled the sails right back in again dame quick.

Special comments by Fiona:  Now I know why I’m so terrified of ocean creatures at night….because they jump out of the water and onto the deck!  All I can say is thank god it was only a baby squid and not a whale!

We’d downloaded the weather by using the grib files so we both knew we were expecting heavier winds.  We waited and waited in anticipation.  We could tell by the clouds that there was a change coming – thanks Henry my Day Skipper teacher who covered this off with me!  We reefed in the sails and simply waited.  Well, it came and we were ready for it!  To be honest I enjoyed the change of weather, the squally showers, the sound of the wind picking up and blasting through our rigging.  I even recorded on our camera the waves coming up behind us.  It was fun! 

As night time came the winds were still ever so present and were only getting stronger.  The fun of it all was slowly starting to fade away…….