The winds finally arrived overnight. Along with some rather scary clouds. So just after dawn this morning we had our first real rain storm. I could track it on the radar and it was amazing how fast these clouds move.  Just before it got to us the wind rose to 28 to 30 knots so we had something of a sledge ride for some 45 minutes. Then the rain. Boy did it come down. Washed the sails down a treat. Well on one side anyway.

Then it just evaporated (no pun intended) and left us with a cloudy but blue sky and a pewter coloured sea.

The other fun thing this morning was just after I came on watch. It was still dark (ish) and I was leaning over the Port side guard rail, adjusting the tension on the boom preventer, when a lone Dolphin jumped out of the water right in front of me. It was to put it mildly a rude awakening!!!!!!!

As indicted in a previous dairy entry, we are now sailing the Rhumb line. With the onset of the Trade Winds we have managed to cover 84 nm in the last 12 hours. This with reefed main and one reef in the Genoa. This is much more like it!! That said the seas were relatively large today with wave heights in the region of 10 to 12 feet, and the motion on the boat (nothing to do with the Dolphin moment) is rolly. So we have to be careful not to fall over whilst moving around. Despite that we managed to have a shower today. You have no idea how much joy a simple shower can bring. I will spare you the details…………

Having seen no shipping at all yesterday we have seen three very large ships travelling at high speed this afternoon. This is a good reminder that we need to keep a good watch lookout,

Jennie is in the galley just now creating another culinary master piece. I look forward to sampling its delights in due course.