First night at sea, sometime in the night the wind dropped and the engine was put on. Denz had opened his bedroom hatch for some air unfortunately a ferry came to close to us, causing a massive tidal wave that sent water through the hatch wetting all his bedding.

We had a really good sail on the 12^th December 154 nmiles in 24 hours, with the main, mizzen and headsail out romping along at 5 to 7 knots over ground, but it didn’t last and by the night of the 13^th the engine had to go on, unfortunately it stopped 4 times during the night, but started straight away once it had been bled, its definitely a fuel problem.

There was much discussion about the engine, should we turn back whilst we still could, but we were not in any danger out in the big ocean, the worst that could happen is that we’d be becalmed, but we do need to know that we can rely on the engine to get into a marina once we’ve crossed the Atlantic. The guys decide that air has to be getting into the fuel system somewhere. When they check all the ‘O’ rings and connections that had been undone to clean our fuel system in Sotogrande they find several that are loose, these are tightened up and we hope that has solved our problems.

John developed a really heavy head cold and was feeling very ache, he thinks he must have caught it on the flight back, so I did his 8pm to 12pm watch for a couple of nights and sent him to bed early with paracetamal. After a couple of days he’s starting to feel much better.

We learnt early on that although our IT comms worked in Lanzarote once we got out to sea we could not send emails or get a weather forecast other than by the SSB and this takes hours frustrating but not a lot we can do about it.

The guys have been catching fish most days which helps pass the time and they love reeling them in and seeing what they’ve caught.

Stacey had made us an Advent Calendar with gifts or forfeits for each day and this has also helped pass the day time, up to now we’ve each had a Christmas tree decoration she had made from red felt, Denz had a cover for his bean bag made out of the old blue water rally flag, John had a bar of dark chillie chocolate which he ate with a beer, John also had a forfeit and had to scream as loud as he could on deck, and I had to sing Jingle bells it all helped to release the tension building up about the engine.

We decide to head further south so the guys put our twin head pole rigging up for down wind sailing, but the ballooner had not been up an hour before it tore in two. We had known our sails needed replacing and have new once waiting for us in Antigua but we were hoping they would last us across the Atlantic. Loosing our ballooner is a real blow as we were expecting to use our twin headsail rig for most of the sail across the Atlantic. We decide to configure our sails, into a traditional goose wing, with the headsail poled our to port and the main to starboard, this seems to work well and once more were romping along and then were surrounded by dolphins and life’s good again and we all felt great.

On the 19^th December we had a lot of rain and squalls with large waves, it was overcast and grey but we were still romping along when we saw another boat at the side of us, the only boat we saw. They called us on the radio and Denz had a bit of a laugh and joke with them, they ask if they can come close and give us some cigarettes in exchange for beer. Denz tells them to stay away. Later on whilst I’m on watch they call again and ask if we’ll slow down as they can’t keep up with us and it would help the crews moral if they were close to another boat during the night. Boats just don’t do that and I was very suspicious, why did they want us to slow down. After us all discussing what had been said on the radio we realized that we did not know their boats name or where they’d come from or their intensions, but they knew we were only three on board, I was scared and we all felt vulnerable, perhaps too many horror movies and stories about pirates but we decided we’d feel safer with a few miles between us. Once there was four miles between us we relaxed a bit but the discussion about our close encounter with a boat of unknown intensions continued for several days and we all agreed on a protocol for radio contact.

We had continued to make excellent progress sailing everyday up to evening of 19^th December when the wind died to force 2 so the engine had to go on again. During this time the guys have caught a fish every day and we’d continued to open Stacey’s gifts, one that caused great laughter was a Christmas jumper and hat for John that turned him into a Santa’s helper with jingle bells, and Denz had a forfeit of having to give me a big cuddle and then John, so I’ve got a great photo of John dressed up and Denz giving him a cuddle.

The engine is still playing up and the guys still believe its air getting in the system. We remember that when the mechanic changed the fuel filter he hadn’t got a new ‘O’ ring so the fuel filter is changed. For the next four days we had very little wind and had to have the engine on all the time but Hallelujah it doesn’t stop once. Our new concern was whether we would have enough fuel if the wind did not pick up.

Christmas eve were sailing again and I made some cheese pastry ready to make sausage rolls and chees straws for Christmas Day a bit of a tradition.

Christmas day we had a really good sail during the night and by 7am the sun was shining and we were romping along at 6 – 8 knots. After breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg and real coffee we open one or two cards and the rest of our pressys. John finds a few Christmas songs, which nearly brings a tear to my eye as I thought of all the family. I made the sausage rolls and we had roast pork, with roast potatoes and Brussels, nearly a Christmas dinner.

We sited land on the 27^th December at about 8 am, we had crossed the Atlantic once again, but before we could step on land we had to clear immigration customs and port authorities and that proved to be an episode on its own.