All’s going well so far.  We’ve done over 250 miles now and the wind is still good so if it keeps up we could be in St. Lucia for Christmas and not mid-ocean as we originally thought.  The sea is a bit rough today but nothing like as bad as on the way to Gran Canaria.  At least I’ve been able to cook this time and our first meal was a successful Vegetable Goulash, while last night we had pasta with blue cheese and mushrooms.  Due to some confusion regarding the units of measurement, our fresh fruit and veg order from the local market ended up with us having only 4 oranges but about 4 pounds of carrots –causing Paul to comment that it was a ridiculous amount of carrots considering he only eats about 1 a fortnight! I think it was supposed to be the other way around.  It’s now my mission to use up the surplus stock so I’ll have to be creative with the next few meals – and eat lots of raw carrots!  We’ve got back into the routine of being at sea now and we’re on the 4 hours on 4 off system of watches with the 4pm until 8pm one split into two hours each.  This gives a structure to the day and means we each get to see the lovely sunrises and sunsets.  We haven’t seen any other Arc yachts apart from a few distant stern lights the night before last which is pretty amazing considering we all left together on Sunday afternoon and had to be careful not to hit anyone, but gradually we all went off in different directions and now all we can see is sea and sky and the odd container ship. The weather is warm and sunny and even the night watches are relatively mild.  The main difference from the other trips is that the nights are longer – the sun sets at 6 30 and rises at about 7 but as we head further south the days will gradually lengthen – one of the many things I’m looking forward to.  We saw dolphins in the distance yesterday morning but nothing since.  I’m about to go on watch now  - will be back with another entry and some photos in a couple of days.

Cheers, Kathy