I forgot to mention that we refuelled the main tank yesterday to get the weight out of the forward hold where we store the jerry cans. We have used 140 litres of our 680 and expect good sailing weather the rest of the way to Bermuda so should have more than enough. As it turns out we won't be using the engines anyway at least not the starboard one until I can get under the boat (we have 6ft waves at the moment so that will be a while) and remove the large anonymous mass that has got stuck around the propeller. I am going to try and do this en-route as we are encountering a large number of cargo ships and I don't like to be without the ability to manoeuvre should the need arise. Fortunately I was on watch and noticed the change in vibration when we picked this up so was able to shut down immediately and then verify it was there this morning through the water-window in the Port hull.
Overnight and much of today we continued to have squalls around us but most disappeared before they hit. The wind has been in the 20 knot range for much of the day and sometimes well above so we carried 3 reefs (probably overkill) during the night and 2 most of today. Running well reefed has cost us time today but we have logged 158 miles and made 142 on course. We just passed the half way mark so hopefully we will get to Bermuda on Monday.
There has been a bit of queasiness aboard as the boat has been so actively moving and I have recommended Stugeron which I know works well for Kim. I had a slight touch of it from hanging head down in the watermaker compartment changing filters and only Jim seems untouched.
Speaking of Jim, it was his birthday and as he had mentioned it to Kim I included some candles, cake mix and Happy Birthday napkins in the provisioning - nice to be able to celebrate something.
We saw a nice pod of about a dozen dolphins just before dinner but although they came up to us they seemed disappointed with our 6 knot bow wave and left very quickly.
Louise cooked chicken pasta for dinner with cake and Ice Cream to follow. Jim has something special planned for tomorrow and we have been told to keep our hands off the sea salt and pepper cashew nuts as they are an essential ingredient.
As usual after three days I am looking forward to dry land or at least a calm sunny patch tomorrow.
Overnight and much of today we continued to have squalls around us but most disappeared before they hit. The wind has been in the 20 knot range for much of the day and sometimes well above so we carried 3 reefs (probably overkill) during the night and 2 most of today. Running well reefed has cost us time today but we have logged 158 miles and made 142 on course. We just passed the half way mark so hopefully we will get to Bermuda on Monday.
There has been a bit of queasiness aboard as the boat has been so actively moving and I have recommended Stugeron which I know works well for Kim. I had a slight touch of it from hanging head down in the watermaker compartment changing filters and only Jim seems untouched.
Speaking of Jim, it was his birthday and as he had mentioned it to Kim I included some candles, cake mix and Happy Birthday napkins in the provisioning - nice to be able to celebrate something.
We saw a nice pod of about a dozen dolphins just before dinner but although they came up to us they seemed disappointed with our 6 knot bow wave and left very quickly.
Louise cooked chicken pasta for dinner with cake and Ice Cream to follow. Jim has something special planned for tomorrow and we have been told to keep our hands off the sea salt and pepper cashew nuts as they are an essential ingredient.
As usual after three days I am looking forward to dry land or at least a calm sunny patch tomorrow.
