Day four at sea and we are all beginning to settle into a routine.  The watch system, 3 hours on and 6 off at night, 3 on 3 off during the day with Gill on permanent Mother watch (her choice!) and one of us having a day off every third day, seems to be working fine.  As expected the days are fairly casual but at least one person is designated as “In charge”.  In terms of look out, since we left the Canaries we have seen no sign of humans bar the odd piece of floating rubbish.

Day one was about feeling ill and stress and wondering if we had made a mistake setting off at all!  It yakes awhile to get used to living inside a tumble drier

Day two we set the twin head sails, poled out each side and got the Hydrovane working

Day three, Dicken started fishing....no fish yet! We also were joined by a pod of twenty plus dolphins playing around the bow wave.  I never, ever get bored of watching them.  They are so perfectly designed for their environment.

Day four, Ian is taking sun sights with the sextant.  I am waiting till he works it out and then he can explain it to me...

Our run rate is sadly low, between 100 and 110 nm per day, extrapolating that puts us in Barbados around the 23rd January...and Dickemn winning the sweepstake

Will try and upload this now,  I do hope it is working, it should also give a rough idea of our track across the Atlantic

Take care and I hope 2014 is treating you well so far

Love

Alasdair, Gill, Dicken, Ian, Habitat, Pickles and Star Charger