Day 3 - Finisterre ahoy!

Betsy
Sat 16 Jul 2022 12:37
A fast passage across Biscay with some good surf, clocking a max speed of 12 knots yesterday evening. We finally ran out of wind this morning and are now motoring into a light southerly breeze.

T & J have put Kate & I to shame with their culinary skills at sea - Julia cooked up a full roast chicken dinner last night, only slightly spoilt by my decision to put a quick reef in the main due to a crack appearing in the gooseneck, just as she was ready to serve up! (It’s not a concern, but we will need to monitor it & maybe reef earlier in future!)

Betsy continues to delight and amaze with her seakeeping qualities and ‘George’ is the star of the show so far. Solar panels working well too. We are all in fine form and looking forward to the rest of the voyage - about 2025 n miles to run to Preveza. We have completed 153 n miles in the last 24 hours to noon today.

The satellite phone data is definitely not my friend! After trying to obtain a simple forecast yesterday, using exactly the same code & settings as the previous 2 days, I got error codes…and burnt 30 of our precious 54 remaining data minutes, so have decided to just keep it for emergency calls and use 4G for WX when we can. The 4G was awesome on Thursday evening - it was lovely to chat to family on what’s app over 40 miles from land.

WX likely to be light and variable going down the Portuguese coast for the next few days, so lots of use of the iron topsail is likely, but the Portuguese trades are forecast to kick in again lasted this week.

Love to all

Simon & crew

SV Betsy

Noon position 15/07/2022
44.20.19 N 8.18.34W