Family, Friends and supporters, at long last the rest of the crew have been GENTLY PERSUADED by my good self Skip. to write a more personal blog , hopefully we will get more out before we reach land.  Once again in the early hours of the morning Friday 5 Feb a challenge was set for us, alas our auto helm is slowly dying.  We have already gone through one auto helm and this is our last one so if we end up in Barbados instead of Antigua that would be why!  So we are now hand steering which in big waves and strong winds is not as easy as it sounds We don’t have a steering wheel its two bits of rope which are difficult to handle or we have to hold the tiller in our rudder compartment which is difficult to get to. Also one of our raymarine screens which controls the rudder has died too along with our fan in one of the cabins so we are GLAD we only have a another 650 miles or so to go. Also Sunday 7 Feb our chartplotter decided to go funny on us instead of the image of our boat heading West on the chart with the bow at the front its completely turned around and is travelling west backwards, when we first looked we thought maybe we are going back to La Gomera! but everything else the sun the compass lat and long  tells us we are travelling in the right direction.  A nice man at Raymarine who we called on Monday helped us put it right but basically no more chance of any auto helm so hand steering all the way now. So far we have covered over 2200 miles and every day brings a new challenge for us both mentally and physically.  We know that we are out here for probably another two weeks depending on weather and sea conditions etc. we are all missing our loved ones family and friends our days are full of joy, tears, laughter and many other emotions.  We get through it because we are together (well we are all in the same boat) and also because we know that its not a forever feeling and that when we arrive in Antigua it will all be worth it.  We also know how privileged we are to be able to do this and that not everyone has the chance that we have to see such amazing sights out here whilst we still want to enjoy the journey I think we will all be very happy to be reconciled with our loved ones.  We have no Facebook or twitter access but have been told by our family that we have a massive amount of support from thousands of people and when we hear this we are so overwhelmed we cry again!!!  We want to thank everyone for all the support you are giving us even though we can’t access all the kind words just to know we are supported helps us every hour of every day.  This is a tough challenge we are out here alone but we also know that many people in the world face much tougher challenges than we do, we have our health and are well and we know there are those less fortunate so we are thankful everyday.  A few days ago we  had a visit from the safety yacht we were so happy to see them it made our day, even thought they just circled us a few times checked we were OK and then disappeared off into the horizon it was good to see them.  That's all for now bottoms still sore but our spirits are good, we are counting down to our arrival in Antigua.  Skip Janette XX