Monday 29th of June 2015

I woke up from my early evening watch off by the boat tilting slightly and the sound of water against the hull. I had a quick look at the instrument by the bunk in the Queen's Cabin, as the aft cabin of Queen's Ransom is called. The wind speed had increased to 18 knots and we were speeding along under the asymmetric or asym as my racing guys calls it. 20 knots is the limit with this sail. I went up to the cockpit where Hans were just taking picture of a picture perfect sun set.



It was the most amazing evening as we suddenly were surrounded by a sea of dolphins while doing 8 knots under a beautiful down wind sail as the sun was setting. They stayed with us for a long time; jumping out of the water and playing by the bow. It was with great reluctance that we decided to take down the asymmetric for the night and rig a more conservative poled out genoa to leeward and stay sail sheeted on the other side. I was joking to Hans that we were using almost all ropes onboard, even the running back stays. The kind of configuration we ran as we were leaving Tenerife on our first Atlantic crossing. The dolphins must have been surprised as Queenie slowed down to five knots as the asym came down.



However, with the other sails up again, we could still make a respectable seven knots on a more downwind wind angle which suited us better to reach Cape Finisterre. It was the best summer evening of the year this far, yes and in fact the best day as well. The weather was warm, sun from a clear blue sky, light winds and a calm sea. Dinner and some red wine in the cockpit. Life as it best!



It is a big contrast with last night. Gone is the murkiness and the moon is almost full. I can still see plenty of stars in the sky. We are pretty much in the middle of the Bay of Biscay or Bay of Dolphins as it is now called. It is 176 Nm to La Coruna and 136 Nm to Raz de Seine. We have left the continental shelf so we have more than 4000m of water under the keel. We are far away from civilization. I can see the cargo ships on AIS on a straight line between Ushant and Cape Finisterre some 60 Nm to the West while the fishing boats tend to stay on the continental shelf some 60 Nm to the North West of us. However, soon enough, we will be back in it all. Expected ETA in Northern Spain is early Wednesday morning.



Ulric Almqvist