This morning dawned with a mackeral sky, which cleared during Juliet's early watch, then we sailed into a bank of black cloud.  We reefed the genoa (the mainsail already had a reef) and waited for the rain.  Geoff had managed, for the first time, to have a dry night watch, but was now out in a very heavy downpour.  Visibility reduced to a few yards and the sea flattened out.  It only lasted five minutes and then began to clear, although the wind had headed to a northerly.  This was not what we wanted at all!   We are currently beating into a confused and lumpy sea, the boat healed right over, and are heading for New York!   Pip is delighted and keeps singing "Just those two little words - New York, New York" but the rest of us want to go to Bermuda!

 

Although we are going very slowly, we are now roughly 280 miles from Bermuda, and, having studied the weather grib files, are hopeful that we will soon find a veer in the wind to enable us to track north again.  Having the boat at this angle makes life on board pretty difficult.  There are no flat surfaces so everything ends up on the floor.  Juliet cooked pancakes for everyone this morning, which all went fine until the very end, when she was getting hers ready.  The boat lurched just at the wrong moment and the plate with pancake, sugar and lemon ended up on the galley floor.  It was not a happy scene.

 

Here is Pip with two flying fish she found on the deck:

 

 

We have noticed that the mornings and evenings are lighter, with dawn around 5am instead of 6.30 in Antigua, and it is still light here at 7pm.  It is also a lot cooler and we are reaching for our fleeces and long trousers, from the back of the cupboard. 

 

We are currently sailing at around 6 knots, some 30 degrees off course.  Charlie is starting to doubt whether his estimate of a Saturday lunchtime arrival may be a bit optimistic.