Lots of the crews on other boats are shooting off quite quickly. Most have to be back at the dreaded work, so are delivering the boat now and will return later. We're definitely somewhat more blessed with our plans!
We've been listening to lots more 'Mark Steele's in Town' - learning about places like Holyhead and Derry. They're a great listen - worth hunting around on the BBC's site to see if they're still available for download.
Last nights watches were very straightforward again. Barry got all the rain, but even that was only a sprinkle. For most of the night it was nice sailing under decent skies. I say that, but as skipper - doing the 7-10pm watch, and on call for the rest - the crew haven't called me. This is great! :)
We're promised a bit more wind, which may speed our arrival. We've been averaging a bit over 6knots today, which isn't what we'd normally like at all - but is fine given it is easy on the boat. There seems little point in going for it and risking lots of breakages. Be interesting to see what issues other boats have had - as we've not been able to read blog entries whilst underway. Doppelbock's route took them through more weather than we've seen - does that reflect in equipment failures I wonder?
So the upcoming night may be our last night watches. I hope so - we all want to arrive now and be able to join the other crews in celebrating. We've quite a few domestic chores to do once we're in (such as laundry), which has been restricted due to the watermaker failure - though we can still generate water, its about half the rate for the same power consumption. So we're taking it a bit easy and not using the washing machine just yet. Once we're in Antigua on shore power, we probably can't use the washing machine anyway (wrong Hz) - but we'll be fine using it at anchor.
Hopefully the next update will be when we're within site of Antigua! Peter - we've put that lovely bottle in the fridge in anticipation :)