Dear Family and Friends,

 

The good ness is we are still plodding on, under motor, as the winds have remained much the same for the last 48 hours. As one of our OCC colleagues has observed there appear to be wind holes several hundred miles wide and we seem to be in one of them. On advice we are trying to make more southing to reach more favourable winds below latitude 17 degrees but our timeframes dont allow us much leeway to so make so small a progress towards Antigua which is more west x south rather than our present course SW, several tens of degrees difference.

 

However we are most thankful that Alan has managed to keep our engine running by changing the filters twice a day.

The fuel has been filtered and switched between tanks, the contamination is truly epic. We can not understand why it is so bad as we have always put the diesel bug killer in with each batch of fresh fuel, but there we have it.

 

We have everything crossed that the engine and fuel continues to hold out and that the wind improves. 

 

On the upside, the days are now very warm, blue skies and clear starry nights. We are all fine, although now keen to make landfall. There are several ways to tackle boredom, we have read a lot, slept a lot, meals are important staging posts to the day and today I baked bread again. Nothing like the smell and taste of fresh bread! The nights do seem long with 12 hours of darkness. Yes I hear you saying back in the UK its longer than that, but you have more distractions, after dark we retire/go on watch.

 

We recalculate our landfall everyday to test whatever theory about the best wind/route is thought of. Our best estimates providing we continue to have use of the engine will be 26th/27th December. Watch this space!

 

Lastly a call for Janet and John to contact us on our email please.

 

All our best,

 

Lynne, Alan and James