Lat: 30:16.8. N : Long: 054:51.2 W.

Tuesday, 10^th June, 2014 – Noon Position, East of Bermuda, North Atlantic.

Dear All,

Well, we have motor-sailed again, all day today, with just the mainsail out since 01:00 this morning, pretty much just as predicted we would have to by our GRIBs of yesterday.

We finally got rain followed by a near calm in the early hours this morning. A North-Westerly breeze of 4-6 knots settled, but even this died off before midday when it was showing Force 1-2 NNE (viz. coming directly from the direction we are heading in), so there's no alternative to motoring, other than to just sit and wait it out!.

Yesterday   I wrote, 'Early tomorrow morning we expect to be on the other tack, close reaching in very light winds....' and that is exactly what happened, albeit perhaps 1 hour earlier than I had thought and there is no point in trying to sail with it yet. So we put the spinnaker pole back up against the mast and have strapped the mainsail amidships.

The breeze was mainly from the North, Force 1-2 all day and we no longer think we can keep up with the very thin line of Easterly flow of stronger breeze off to our starboard side that we first tried to reach. This finger of stronger wind keeps tempting us to head due East and go for it. However, there's a serious risk if we do that of it petering out and our getting trapped in the Azores High, without enough favourable wind to get out of it quickly if we do go there!

Today's renewed GRIBs show we are unlikely to get much wind for the next couple of days either. So we have now positively decided to head more North-Easterly, to try and make the jump across this dead patch. We are aiming to get swept up in 2 or 3 days time by one of the passing Easterly airstreams that have been passing us to the North of our current position. But that is only likely to happen when we finally get up to about 38* North, which is still some 8 degrees of Latitude (i.e. approx. 480 nautical miles) or three days motoring away.

Let's hope our diesel lasts long enough for motoring all through these few days, but I suspect it might not! We really could do with keeping about 400 litres in our tank for the final approaches into the Azores, just in case the High envelopes us again, but to motor non-stop over the next two days will consume around 340 litres (3 days therefore taking 510 litres) and we only have about 700 in the tank as I write.... It could be a close thing.

Other than that we are all reading a lot, or watching movies (in Nelius's case) and the sextant is getting a lot of usage, too.

I have just finished yet another superb book by Jodi Picoult, called 'Lone Wolf'. Having read her 'A Change of Heart' with Sue, only a few weeks ago, I had been looking forward to getting into this one, too. I was not disappointed and can recommend it to anybody as a highly unusua and challenging read, just as all her niovels have been so far.

Far from being 'Chick Lit' (what a horrible phrase!) Jodi PIcoult appears to be one of a growing band of excellent North American writers who have appeared on the best-seller lists and her novel subjects are all challenging reading, tackling some of the most difficult of human circumstances, all with very unusual twists or sub-plots in which they are set.

We first got into this kind of exciting new writing style with the recommendation to read 'A Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver, given to us, most unexpectedly by our good friend, Neil Rock. If you get into that first one, then her several other novels, e.g. like 'Pigs In Heaven' and 'The Lacuna' are also both very unusual stories, very well written and very rewarding to read. Try one!

Now I have moved on to the far drier and tougher 'The Audacity of Hope' by Barak Obama. Hard going, but interesting nonetheless, considering his current situatio n after nearly two terms in the Oval office!

The three younger guys are keeping the Skipper happy by doing the night watches on a singleton basis, 3hrs on and 6hrs off, with Alan only needing to show his head whenever there is a major wind change, or the need to write to Chris Tibbs at Midnight, in time for his morning Met. Advice, like tonight!.

Best regards to you all,

Alan and Sulana's crew.