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Firefly - Full moon



We doubt its planned, but many of the World ARC legs are timed beautifully for a full moon. The sky during our first night at sea on passage to Suwarrow was clear and the moon was huge and bright. It makes the night time watches considerably more enjoyable especially as we are now two handed and having to spend more time on watch.

The wind increased gradually during the night and the peak windspeed was 30 knots with about 20 being the average. We are therefore making very good progress with a day 1 24 hour run of just under 170 miles. The sea is moderate and Firefly is rolling a lot as she ploughs on to the west.

With most of the boats still in close proximity, the morning roll call via SSB radio was generally a 'loud and clear' affair and due to the fleet being split - it was over considerably quicker than usual. Up ahead I could hear a few transmissions from Group 1 whose net preceeded ours by 30 mins - Charlie on Celebrate (who are about 300 miles west north west of Firefly) said it was raining so hopefully that will miss us although cloud is building up wind of us at present.

The weather towards the end of our 7 week stay in French Polynesia has been more changeable with a strong NW blow coming through after our arrival in Bora Bora about a week ago. This is taking a bit of getting used to because since the trip started from Salcombe in the UK at the end of September 2013 the weather has generally been very good - this being once we cleared Biscay and Finisterre. All the way to the Canaries it was great and during our stay in Lanzarote. We had to endure a long weekend of head winds and torrential rain during the halfway section of our transat to Antigua but once in the West Indies it was sunny and windy. Since leaving St Lucia with the World ARC we have seen very little rain at all - until recently!

Paul and Susie

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