What a great night sailing for us. For once we had good winds for the whole time, albeit coming onto our nose now. We changed from the genoa to the cutter jib a few moments ago to allow us a better angle into the increasing headwind. All good though and we are making good progress towards the entrance to the Channel. Yesterday brought us some more 'surprises'. Besides seeing the sun and having a blue sky for the first time in days, we encountered an uncharted weather buoy. I had gone over the paper charts before taking off and had noted the submerged buoys with no indication that they would be any trouble. Yesterday morning as we came closer to the area I noticed a very large (about 5 m in diameter and about 7 m high) structure that looked like a fishing vessel from farther away. As we got closer I could see that it was a weather buoy. Unfortunately without an AIS signal or sound. Fortunately the fog had lifted and I was able to steer around it. We would not have seen it in t he thick fog we had earlier until the very last moment. Wonder why they do not make these buyos safe with an AIS signal. They do it for the ones on land! This morning we had a beautiful clear sky again and we could see all the traces of the dozens of flights heading into LHR and beyond. Made me think of my earlier life where the likelyhood I was in one of those flying tubes was pretty good. The same goes of course for Kim (Tom's mother) who was a flight attendant in the past. Happy Birthday (sorry for being late) to both Kim and Francesca (Tom's sister). ETA looks like June 6 now. We made good progress and I think it is safe to say we will be in on the 6th. Not sure yet if we will make it in the morning or late afternoon depending on the wind direction and the tidal state as we will want to time it carefully through the Needles.

All OK on board TWD - SE to E TWS - 16 kn COG - 75 deg SOG - 6 - 6.5 kn Baro - 1030 weather - blue sky but cold! ETA - June 6, 2013

Charles