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Tulla Mhor - day 20; nearly there



Hope to be arriving tomorrow (Sunday) during day light. We are on a direct course with 1 reef sailing in  quite strong winds with big seas. We have had a few visits from dolphins as we are becoming closer to land. The boat is quite jerky with lots of movement and just had a morning coffee disaster with the pot falling over and coffee grounds everywhere. Mostly cleared up and the rest can wait until we arrive.
We are dependent on our Watt and Sea hydrogenerator for most of our power and it has been working really well. You can tell the speed of the boat by the sound and tone of its whirring as it spins round charging the batteries. Yesterday morning it was making a different sound. It is almost impossible to lift it out of the water, or put it back in, when we are sailing at any speed so we turned the boat round and managed to heave to which was not easy with the big waves. Dugald lifted the Watt and Sea out and it all looked fine. When back sailing it was making it’s usual happy whirring sound. There must have been seaweed which was dislodged with our turn.
Squall Alley! Yesterday Andrew spotted a heavy rain shower heading for us and then suddenly we seemed to be surrounded by squalls. The radar was showing at least 4 large squalls one of which was making steady progress towards us. The chart plotter was bleeping “dangerous vessel”.
Feeling quite anxious I persuaded everyone it would be good to put in a couple of reefs, which we did. However we managed to miss all the squalls and just had a tiny bit of light rain. The weather settled and the rest of the night was clear with moonlight  for the first half.
With less then 200 miles to go tonight should be our last night watches. All is well on board and we are enjoying exciting sailing, but hopefully for me not too exciting, especially for my last watch. Will be a bit sad to stop the journey and have enjoyed it more than I expected.
Better get the Fizz in the fridge and be reporting from dry land next time.
 
Val



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