Yesterday, Tuesday we weighed anchor, with a plan to go to Alor. We had intended to day sail along the coast, anchor and then cross to Alor today. BUT, we left with a glorious 10/12 knot favourable breeze and sailed along and north, north east beside the west coast of Timor in perfect sailing conditions just cruising along at a steady pace on flat water. Later in the day the breeze dropped out a little and we put the MPS up to boost our way. As we had been progressing steadily on flat water we decided to continue on over night to arrive at Alor in daylight the next morning.

The wind faded and we kept the MPS up for the night. At about 10.00pm Dianne was sitting on the front deck keeping an eye on a couple of close boats and reading when she was surprised by a loud, "WHOOOOSH!" right next to her. When she looked around she saw a massive phosphorescent image in the water heading towards us and then it moved right under her under the front decks and hulls. Obviously a whale on the surface that then swam under us.

As the night went on the wind died out but the seas became very sloppy. At about midnight a couple of boats in front that had set out before us were reporting 25knots on the nose so we thought it prudent to take in the MPS and return to the Genoa. An hour or so later the wind piped in and from about 2.00am we had about +/- 20 knots and about 9 knots of boat speed. It was great. Earlier in the day we had tides and currents of up to 4 knots against us! The tide turned to help us also.

Just now it is 0800 and we are entering the channel towards Alor about 20 miles to go and a big pod of dolphins leading us in .

A really mixed night with calm, flat, rolly and windy but a good sail at the end and wind is dying out again now.

We have a couple of volcano to port and the channel and a small island to starboard.