Yesterday was a lovely day - sun shining, gentle breezes coming from exactly the right angle to deploy the gennaker for the first time, Flying this sail gained us an extra couple of knots - all good for helping us reach our target arrival date. And added to that, the watermaker is fully functional so we were all able to indulge in a shower. Luxury indeed.
Of course there has to be some crisis requiring solving and yesterday it was the generator. Turns out it was simply low on oil - being new, it presumably has burnt more than usual. Anyway, it is now back on line charging the batteries - crisis averted.
Jay Jay afloat is proving to be a gastronomic delight - fresh bread every day, home-cooked dinners and even desserts as and when. Today, Debra made some chocolate brownies which have gone down very well with the crew. The fresh provisions will soon be coming to an end so we will be raiding the tinned supplies ... I think Ed & Phil are looking forward to cracking open the Fray Bentos meat pies. Debra's not so sure!!
We were joined by a family of whales early afternoon which stayed around for over 30 minutes. I think they were as curious about us as we were about them, Maybe the red gennaker caught their eye ... assuming they can recognise colour ... but interestingly as soon we took it down when a squall looked as though it was heading our way, the whales headed off.
We're now well over 1300 miles from Las Palmas and so are nearing our half-way mark ... to be celebrated with a rum cocktail, probably our only alcoholic drink for the passage. It's surprising how quickly the time is passing : We had great plans about how to occupy our time ... poetry and story hour, learning Polish from Ed, writing etc etc. As yet we've engaged in little of these activities but none of us are bored. Probably we have all just relaxed into the experience, who knows?