61 20.0'N:01 53.4'E We are sailing through the same oil platforms today that we did back on June 16th north bound. We had North Sea Brent in sight. The oil fields are just as much a pain now as they were in June, but now less interesting. One fact you might not be aware of: for every platform there is at least one ship-sized tug or fishing boat standing guard duty to make sure that no one can get close to a rig. That has got to add a few pennies to each barrel of oil that they pump. For a better description of the scene I think you can look back at the blog entry for 16Jun08. The best part of today has been just enough wind to sail most of the time. We can't hold our downwind rhumb line without rolling the wind out of the sails but we can come close. In about 50 miles the Shetland Islands are going to get in our way and make us tack to the south. It is possible, if the weather forecast is okay, if we end up close enough and soon enough that we will pull into Lerwick. We could see some friends, buy some friendly duty free diesel, and buy some friendly duty free beer which we happen to be out of. We did the perfect rationing of the beer supply in Norway. We drank the last one on the last day there without having to pay their prices. Most Norwegians would agree that Norway has a drinking problem. The price of liquor is much to high!