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Firefly - Moonlit night watches



Sailing down wind has been a delight while on deck with clear skies, an almost full moon and a sparkling sea. As a bonus we had some dolphins join us for a while. Down below Paul has had to draw the curtains to keep out the moonlight and its a bit rolly so sleep off watch can be hard to find.

The blissful night was disturbed at dawn with a sudden wind and rain squall that pushed the wind up by 25 knots for a short period, the highest wind speed was 45 knots. We have have also been sailing through lots of debris, mostly wood, which we suspect was washed out into sea during the recent storms on land.

Our long range radio (SSB) has been working well (the courses Paul and Peter took last year are paying off) and we have been speaking to the rest of the fleet twice a day on a radio net. All the fleet are now out of sight and AIS contact however we get daily position updates by email We know its not a serious race but we are curious to know how well we are doing, mainly because we did not want to get left behind by the bigger boats, especially when its a 26,000 mile rally! - in fact we believe that Firefly is doing well but we don't have access to the World ARC 'Fleet Viewer'. If your interestested you can find it on the World Cruising website - the tab should be somewhere to the left of where this blog is posted. There is also a weather update every two days from the rally organizers to supplement our own forecasts.

We have sailed 350 miles so far, so almost a third of the way to the San Blas islands and anchoring off coconut palm islands - we can't wait.

Paul, Susie, Peter and Grateful (wondering if there's a parrot net)

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