Lat: 38:09.9. N : Long: 039:27.5 W.

Monday, 16^th June, 2014 – Noon Position (UTC -3) 390 nm to Lajes Marina, Flores in the Azores, North Atlantic.

Dear All,

Well, I was wrong and Chris was right! My foolish optimism suggested to me we might just be able to stay ahead of the calm centre of the approaching High, but no sooner had I written and sent off yesterday's message to you all than the wind just vanished, 'just like that', as Tommy Cooper would once have said!

(Sorry, you non-Brits, you will need to Google Tommy Cooper One-Liner Jokes - ancient British comedian, well-known, when I and Sue were a lot younger, for wearing a red Moroccan Fez hat for his shows).

So we started motoring at about 13:17, stopped it for a short while at 18:30 and then had to start up again just a couple of minutes later! Then we ran it all night and this morning until just after lunch, when the breeze settled back in from the S-West this time, but at least steady enough to put up our new, South African Cruising Chute.

So now we are really starting to think of fuel conservation, as we are down to our last 300 litres, which only leaves us about 28 hours more motoring, if we take it gently.....

However, with the Chute up we are now making 4-6 knots, in the right direction, as the breeze freshens and softens. We can also look forward to receiving the first of the new, fresher Southerly breeze which our GRIB files indicate is due to arrive tonight or tomorrow from behind us.

So we will probably drop the Chute before dark tonight and return to our regular sailplan for ease of handling, i.e. back to a full Cutter rig, with Genoa & Staysail.

Now the navigational exercise is all about planning to make landfall in daylight, which possibility fluctuates from one end of a day to the other, depending upon our speed.

Far from what I blithely forecast yesterday, more realistically now, we could be there in either 3 or 4 days. So we are concerned if the speed drops too low and also concerned if it builds too high! We really do not want to arrive off Lajes Marina by night and have to stand off it until daylight arrives, of course. What we can no longer do is use the motor too much, if we want to arrive with some fuel left over for emergencies, or to get us the extra 140 miles along the track to Horta, that is.

Ate our last pineapple for lunch today, but still have two watermelons to keep the dreaded scurvy at bay for the next three days!

That's all for now, folks.

Bye,

Alan and the "Sulana" crew.