Good day to everyone. Our current course is 76 degrees magnetic, with speed of 7.4kts. We are approximately 1200 miles from our final destination and approximately 1000 miles from Iceland. Barometer is 29.96 (it dropped yesterday from 30.06) and steady and winds are SSW at 25-30 with swells 8-10 ft. We are sailing under reefed main, storm staysail, and just a bit of jib.

We should all have great body tone when we arrive in port given the constant isometrics in this weather and on this point of sail. The photos I've included today of Peter and Ted setting the storm staysail and from the bow of the boat are very deceptive. It looks like we could be outside reading a book.....trust me we can't. I need to be careful not to exaggerate, this boat is so comfortable in it's performance and it's accomodations that we are rarely stressed.

The food is almost gourmet. Our Best Meal competition had to deal with a serious contender last night when Ted delivered his Med Chicken. However, he may lose points because of the high residue encountered at cleaning time. Peter is probably way out front at this point scoring constantly with breakfast, lunch, and dinner....plus he gets "assist" points. Even though my Shrimp Spaghetti (recipe and training courtesy of my friend Bill Gaisford) was world glass, I'm afraid I may lose points for creating undue cardiac risk and for using a sous chef (Peter). I can't remember what Dean's meal was, but he has earned many bonus points from his bread making....raisin-cinamon today. Unfortunatley, John is trailing behind and may be disqualified for delivering Mary's Pot Roast and claiming it as his.

We've all carved out our little nests now, and get plenty of sleep and naps. The 2-hour-on watch rotation is a breeze, and personalities seem to still be the same as when we started. We ARE all preying that the sun has not left our universe.

Not much traffic, but last night had a 900 ft tanker approach within 2.8 miles. Never any problem, but amazes me that in this big ocean our paths cross so closely. I suspect it will get even more interesting as we approach Europe. We have made extremely good time, and John deserves a lot of credit for taking optimal advantage of our weather reports. If our speed holds we are looking at a transit time of 17-18 days.

We hope you're all well and are vicariously enjoying our journey. We love getting emails, so if you have thoughts, comments, or news, please send them along to waylee@ocens.net

Stay tuned.

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