17:16.91N 37:12.78W

Since my last blog we had some good sailing after the storm when the wind veered to East again at a steady 10 to 15 knts We had planned our mid Atlantic dinner with a nice bottle of wine and cottage pie followed by cheese cake cooked up by James. With a party in mind , we had party hats streamers,  poppers etc. Just as dinner was served the wind died, went  to the north and yes ,you guessed it, another storm arrived, this one gusted to 35 knots with 5 to 6 metre seas, it raged throughout the night, finally abating at around 05:00 am.Friday 5th December  2008

Hi to all at home,

None of us had much sleep, Libertad just battled on without protest. We found a few more leaks. On Dave watch(12:00to02:00 a large wave hit the starboard quarter and filled the cockpit.

This morning the sun rose bright but still with ominous clouds to the north, the crew are putting up the spinnaker as I write the blog  to make the most of what little wind there is. I suspect we have not seen the last of heavy weather yet. We past a French yacht yesterday bound for Martinique that had lost its Genoa in the

squal.I think I just double blogged! (Mentioned it yesterday)

Spinnaker is flying 6:5 nts on a course of 270 degrees due west. We have now completed 1500 nautical miles since leaving Las Palmas and 3500 nautical miles since sailing out of Sovereign Harbour on the 20th July.

With a little over 1300 nautical miles to St Lucia we feel we may be on the homeward stretch, let’s hope so. With two violent storms in the past twenty four hours you can never be sure of what might be around the next corner, or in our case, over the next wave.

Having just set the spinnaker the wind has veered to the south, are we heading for yet more heavy weather? It certainly teaches patience and fortitude.

We have had reports from ARC control ,that one yacht lost it's propellor,another has been dismasted and is sailing under jury rig to the Azores Islands at 3 knots and a third yacht has gone missing and not reported its position since Nov 30th,,We all hope they are safe and well and have just lost communications.

Noon means I have to make my position report and listen to the latest met weather information, It seems that many yachts are to the south, some as low as 15 degrees lat, but experiencing the same poor weather conditions, apparently there is a frontal trough moving from the north of twenty degrees lat with winds gusting in excess of forty knots reported by many yachts, we think that the best trade winds are to our south, so we will try to sail a little south of west

Thanks for all your e-mails they are getting through but we can't reply to everyone individually..

That about all the news for today

Best wishes Paul