We are continuing to enjoy fantastic conditions, with a steady south-westerly wind of force 4.  Last night we ate roast lamb on normal plates, while sitting at the saloon table - without having to play catch with the salt and pepper pots, cutlery, plates, glasses and bottle of wine.  Very civilised. 

 

Overnight the wind dropped to a force 2-3; we headed up 10% to increase the apparant wind and keep ourselves moving.  We kept the spinnaker up all night and in the morning the wind strength recovered a little.  The light conditions overnight meant we only covered 170 miles over the 24 hours to midday today, but we are still very happy with progress, and we estimate that we will be half way to the Azores by around 3.00am tomorrow morning.  Over the last couple of hours we have found a marine river of current which is heading north-westerly at 1.7 knots, against the prevailing current for this part of the Atlantic.  We understand that this is around 60 miles wide and we are crossing it in a north-easterly direction.

 

The weather forecasts we have at the moment indicate that towards the end of this week the wind is likely to drop away and we will have light conditions.  We are anticipating that we may need to motor some of the way.  This could, of course, change if Hurricane Alberto decides to head our way!

 

Pip has been practising her photography:

 

 

We are still having no luck on the fishing front.  There seems to be a definite lack of sealife - we have not seen any birds today either.

 

In the early hours of the morning we passed an aircraft carrier - we were a long way away but it still looked enormous.