The winds due on Boxing Day being the point of discussion. Bianca Rosa said they'd had enough beating upwind and were heading south. We also thought about heading south - but as the wind filled in from the N (of all places), we hacked along west as best we could.
In fact, the wind has been very puzzling. The fleet forecast for our area suggested E or ESE but the GRIB suggested W or SW - whereas we started with light westerlies, which became N or NNW 4 or 5 and we sped along very happily making some great speed.
Being Christmas Morning, we had a nice scrambled egg breakfast (cooked by the skipper) before we got into presents and phone calls. The parcel from Sailing Rallies was full of fun bits - and we put their CD of christmas carols on - but resorted to the sublime Postmodern Jukebox stuff a bit later ;)
The weather has been superb. Very hot and sunny. Not many clouds. The only slight complaint was that by lunch time we were bowling along so fast, it was a bit hard to hold onto plates. Mind you, we weren't complaining - to have wind from a nice direction was a novelty for the last few days!
We've had many messages, from other boats in the fleet through to friends and family. Thanks for them all, and sorry we can't be there (or you can't be here!) to share. We miss and love you all.
Now the attention turns to tomorrow. Will we get WNW (nice) or SW (ugh) and will it be 4/5or 7/8? We'll see... We'll have to make the best we can of it - before the trades return in the following days. We're all keen for that to happen as soon as possible - and if we need to use the assistance of Mr Volvo Penta's finest donkeys to get to there, we will :) In the meantime, we're sailing west as best we can..
Happy Christmas everyone!