Blue Pearl - Blue Pearl log 6

Out on the open water again, after a rather busy start yesterday navigating through the fleet we are glad to have a bit more space now. Overnight we could see around 30 lights, we were surrounded from most angles and had to keep a close watch as we passed and were passed by other boats. We had a bit of a moment after gybing yesterday when Henry noticed the pole was resting against the rigging! It turns out that the guys I had tied on to the pole had come undone, meaning we had 2 ropes in the water and the pole wavering around. Luckily we managed to get the pole under control and retie the guys to stop the pole moving, I tripled checked the knots this time too! This morning we were surprised to find several grass hoppers or maybe locusts around the deck, not really what we were expecting to see. After a noisy night with flapping sails we decided it was time to brave putting up our spinnaker, this was a bit daunting as we had never used it in anger and had only see what looked like once when we inspected it before setting off. Now we are going at a reasonable speed again but are having to constantly hand steer to make sure we stay on course, at least it is keeping us busy.