WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 3

 

Position at 2230 GMT: 16 deg 12.73 north 46 deg 09.28 west

 

Approx 871 miles to go, more than 2,100 covered so far

 

Sometimes the Atlantic keeps us working flat out with big waves, rain storms, high winds. Today it did nothing. Not a sausage.

 

We’ve been becalmed twice and have struggled to cover 90 miles, compared to our daily average of 140.

 

During one rainstorm, Chris had a shower on deck (wearing his swimming shorts) and shampooed his hair.

 

Two dolphins swam past to take a look this afternoon but didn’t stay – shame that, because we would have opened a tin of tuna for them.

 

To trim the boat a bit better in the strong current we moved about 250 kilos of food and water from the bow to the stern today and this has made a noticeable improvement to the ride.

 

Tonight’s dinner was shepherd’s pie. Dave says it was really cottage pie because it was made with beef mince, not lamb. We can’t google to check because we’re still about six days away from a land link to the internet.

 

Our blogs reach you via a satellite phone which sends messages out in high speed bursts and we have a restricted number of minutes of airtime we can use. So no emails in our out! We get our weather forecasts and routing guidance by text on the sat phone.

 

All very high tech but it still all boils down to four men and a boat.

 

PS: We put our clocks back another hour today so we’re three hours behind you.