Day three of the journey saw a shift onto a starboard tack for the first time in the journey. This shift required some recalibration of the crew's sea legs which took some longer than others. The only casualty however was a plate of bacon and eggs which went AWOL in the morning.

The course saw us require a bearing of 191 to reach our next waypoint off the coast of Fisterra, yielding some very enjoyable close-hauled sailing with speeds reaching up to 9 knots, in some fairly significant waves. Here lay a balancing act of comfort (bearing slightly away from the wind) and reaching our mark to the west of the traffic separation zone (heading up more towards the wind), stage one of not flying too close to the sun, whether the metaphorical sun was to the east or west though was somewhat unknown. The actual sun however was far easier to locate. Despite a few hours of sunshine earlier in the day it had firmly hidden itself behind a thick layer of clouds which engulfed us in the mid-afternoon bringing some rainfall, and so, flying far from the real sun was the only option. Winds up to 25 knots resulted in progressive depowering of the sails, flattening out and taking a reef in each.

As night fell, we continued in the same vein with bellies full of Spaghetti Bolognese, making strong progress to the west. At around midnight the weather intensified with winds tending towards 30 knots. The decision was made to go to reef two on the main and prepare a working Jib on the bow so it would be ready if needed, which it wasn't, but fail to prepare...

Now in the morning following continual wind shifting towards the South West, unusual at this time of the year in these parts, we have over 20 knots of wind and increasing sea states as we run a tight course west of the shipping lanes as well as numerous smiles on deck. The next challenge will lie in avoiding Orca attacks along the coast of Portugal...

Picture of me flanked by my crew !