Grown Ups Gap Year

Day 4 brought the strong winds we had been expecting but we had kept ourselves further south than the shortest route to help keep out the strongest. The day was a mix of drizzle and sunshine but still warm enough to keep the shorts on & we carried on sailing at a good pace crossing the 800NM to go point just after lunch.

Typically, as with all bad weather, the wind started to build late afternoon and would be with us all night. We reduced the sail to just the genoa & gradually reduced this overnight as the winds increased. With very little sail (less than 2nd reef) we were still getting speeds above 8 knots at times (and 11 when surfing) but at least the wind and the waves were in the same direction making the passage less uncomfortable than the other way around. We shared the watches over night keeping them short so as to not get too tired but actually we had very little to do other than the standard safety checks as 'Heidi' our wind steering system performed faultlessly. The night hid the size of the waves but looking at the foam around they were probably around 3m high. As dawn broke the wind and sea started to drop and continued to drop all day and veering slowly to the north as was forecast. We increased the sail area again during the day & went from the down wind sail we were doing overnight to eventually an upwind sail with the wind finished in the north. The upwind part stopped us from sailing directly to Falmouth and we were now heading to Brest the opposite side of the Channel. The wind and waves had shaken the south coast of the UK chalk in our water tanks into the pre-filter of our water tank so we needed to strip our 'at sea' bed down to get at the pump to clear the chalk out.

By the evening of day 5 the wind had completely gone, as expected with an area of still air between two weather systems. The sky partially cleared and we were able to see the stars again in all their splendour. However to stop the sails from shaking themselves to bits we furled the genoa, tighten the main and motored for 10 endless hours. The sky was clear at times but not enough to see the comet, however the cloud where the comet was bright to show us where it is. We motored at 020T to enable us to get into the next lot of wind. The system we were hoping would take us all the way to Falmouth.

Day 6 saw us cross the 600NM mark and find the new weather system and a big wind shift. The wind changed from the North to the South West and began to strengthen again. We launched the cruising chute just after dawn and flew with it until late morning when the wind became too strong for safety and we went to the genoa only enjoying the sunny day. As the day continued the wind increased to a nice consistent F5 and had us travelling at good speeds. We had a great sunny day and were sat enjoying the sun in the cockpit. However the highlight was when we had a magnificent whale swim around 60m from the stern. We saw it break the surface 4/5 times before it disappeared back to the deep. This day sums up why we love sailing so much.

These speeds have continued into day 7 where we have now crossed the 500NM and 400NM to go distances on the same day with Mirage making a noon-noon distance of 150NM. Speeds not seen since we crossed to Barbados last December. We are now hoping to make Falmouth at the weekend. We have one more night of these nice strong SW winds before the wind should ease and turning north for our last stage in to Falmouth. However the weather is wall-to-wall cloud so no sunbathing for us today.