It's a welcome relief to be moving again. And we are moving. The boat loves to have more than 10 knots and last night we started surfing again, hitting the teens of boat speed.
It's been quite a good time for crew to learn how to helm with the kite at night. It is something that has to be done by feel and one that Ineke or I have to stand by to make the occasional course correction. Finally, now we can begin to sense Lanzarote approach, though knowing most of the fleet are already through the Canaries doesn't please the racer in me. Yesterday we sent Ineke up the rig to check everything is OK. We are carefully checking every bit of the boat, especially running rigging. It's a long leg and any failures would be very bad. As an eco-boat, we have also discussed how we would try and save diesel by using as little power as possible on board.
One thing about being Skipper is getting to decide what the time should be! The first few days the boat sounded like a 17th century plague ship. All the crew have some sort of cold/flu and the accommodation echoes with the sounds of bad coughs. I am glad to say this is finally coming to an end, perhaps the warm weather has dried them up. Today we cross into UTC-1 the only place that uses this timezone is the Azores and I decided today we put the clocks back. By doing this every 15 degrees of longitude we will arrive in Uruguay, fairly synched up. It also avoids awkwardness like eating breakfast at noon and lunch in the middle of the night. I notice we've just crossed 30N too and it certainly feels warmer, jumpers were necessary on night watch but tonight I am hot even in a t-shirt. My main hope now is I took the right choice and we still have wind in the lee of the Islands. Ineke and I plan to alternate blogs, I often feel like AQPs are overlooked, but it is definitely a team effort.