They say 24 hours is a long time in politics, well it also seems like a long time in sailing! It seems that although we are tantalisingly close we are upon the most difficult section as we approach the Caribbean. Having to be ready at a moments notice to reduce sail as squalls hit, we can usually see them off in the distance but often it’s hard to tell if they are bound for us or not.

Since yesterday afternoon we have seen little sunshine as clouds have been building around us, and finally about 1830hrs yesterday the heavens opened and with a ferocious gust of wind the first squall hit, as we have rigged a boom preventer to stop the boom slamming the wind got behind this and managed to stall the boat left with no steerage we had little option but to dash down below for a knife and cut the boom preventer free, all rather dramatic but had the right result and a few minutes later we were headed to wind waiting for the squall to pass.

The rest of the night was spent waiting for the next one as it seemed like a very black night but luckily it never did but regardless we left the main well reefed for the night just in case so sailing on just this we made painfully slow progress during the night with light winds. The constant back and forth of the boom mean we had little sleep.

Finally the day came and we were grateful for daylight but short lived as we saw walls of clouds building around us, as the winds were light we decided around midday to launch the trade wind sail to hasten our arrival. Once this had been deployed the wind gradually built and eventually we called time and took it down just in the nick of time before the next squall was upon us, 30 knots of wind and lots of waves chucked up for a couple of hours before things finally brightened up and settled down. Tea and ham and cheese sandwiches made everything seem better and we are now underway again but with just the main sail again. This limits our direction of travel so we are no exactly on course but we are getting closer. 320 miles left to go seems so near yet still some challenges to overcome I suspect.

Everyone I’m pleased to report still in good spirits helped by G&T rations and raiding the emergency chocolate stash in the grab bag but a worthwhile boost to morale as looks like our arrival time may now have slipped back to Sunday morning as we are now only making 5 knots.

Paul/Skip