Position: 15:10:80N 49:41:30W

Transat Day 18

Wow – this is more like it!  We are thundering along, and have just posted our first 150+ mile day!  We are rapidly revising our ETA sweepstakes to some time on Tuesday in the day. Nutmeg is roaring along under full sail - 2 genoas & full main, at anywhere between 6.5 & 8.5 kts.  That’s quite a lot for an old lady!!  We should probably reduce sail but it is so tempting to hold onto it when you are reeling off the miles like this. 

The seas are a little lumpy, probably 2.5m swell and a bit confused so it is quite physical work on the helm.  Wind is currently around 25kts from the ENE.

We have just heard from “Starblazer” – the only other British family boat we’ve met!  Last time we saw them was in the Rias of Northern Spain, so it was a surprise to hear them pop up on the ARC radio sched today.  They took the same decision as us in flying the children over, and Jim and a couple of friends are sailing the boat over.  They are ~200 miles behind us.  They are heading for Barbados and hopefully we’ll meet up with them in the Grenadines in January.  The Caribbean is going to be a complete social, for the kids as well as the adults!

Have taken the decision to move Ships Time back by an hour – oh the power a skipper yields – so we will be 3hrs behind the UK from tonight.

I was just dozing in my bunk last night when I heard a rapid fluttering noise from the aft deck – the sort of sound like a leech of a genoa when it needs the leech line pulling on.  It wasn’t that windy, so I wasn’t sure what it was.  This morning on a thorough inspection I found it was a big flying fish that had jammed itself between the gas bottle box and the cabin!  Glad I noticed – that’s the kind of place I wouldn’t have checked and we could have had a rotten fish there for days…

It feels like a sprint now – “only” 650 miles!!  Come on Nutmeg!!

Hope all’s well

Ollie x