47:34.79N 014:39.50W

Day 6

We’ve had a good run over the last 24 hours. The wind has maintained a steady force 4 from the SW, dropping a little overnight. This has meant that we have had the cruising chute up throughout the daylight hours, enabling us to keep up a good speed.

This morning’s grib chart thankfully shows an improvement in the wind situation, and although we will still face much lighter winds for a period, I hope I will no longer be embarrassed about my prediction of storming into Falmouth, hopefully sometime Tuesday afternoon.

We have spotted our first yacht on the passage. We saw it at first light, coming up behind us. We called them on the VHF and they confirmed that they had come from the Azores and were on their way to Portsmouth. We had to curtail our conversation however, as rather bizarrely, every time we transmit on the VHF, the autopilot stops working, and the yacht takes action into her own hands, leading to a certain amount of chaos on deck! We have launched the cruising chute again, and have pulled away, although they are now holding their position – not that we are competing or anything!

We saw more whale spouts last night, this time only half a mile away. As we still had the cruising chute up, we were unfortunately unable to get any closer.

The shearwaters treated us to another spectacular show for a couple of hours this morning. With a freezer full of tuna, however, the fishing rods remained firmly in their holders.