Having had a further think about our situation yesterday evening, we have decided, with one stay down and another two damaged, that it would be prudent to make for the nearest safe harbour. This is Halifax, Nova Scotia. To that end we have been sailing northwest during the night and as of this moment we are approximately 200 nautical miles away. We are doing our best not to stress the rig too much to try and prevent further deterioration, so we are keeping sail area as small as is reasonably practicable and thus not going as fast as we have previously been able to go. Halifax is still up-wind of us as well, which means that we are having to take a longer route to get there.

 

We’ve now been at sea for 35 days and it’s beginning to show. The tins of food are starting to get flecks of rust on the outside, though they are still as tasty as ever on the inside. Due either to over caution or over buying we still have probably a month’s worth of tinned food left. We certainly won’t go hungry!

 

Unfortunately we’ve got no animal sightings to report as we’ve been rather preoccupied with other things. I did see another sail yesterday (only the second this whole cruise) however it was about 8 miles away and we soon left it behind. The new moon is giving us a great view of the stars with more milkyway last night and still seeing shooting stars occasionally.

 

Hamsi

 

43:23.76N 59:01.04W