Rafiki - Wednesday 28th November

(Rob and Cally write):

We left yesterday along with about 200 other boats for our Atlantic crossing to much fanfare from people on the harbour walls and into some strong northeasterly winds of up to 35 kts from time to time. There was heavy rain, but Cally had a lot of fun hand steering in it, soaked to the skin, but with a big smile on her face. The seas were quite rough, but all manageable by Rafiki and we made our best 24 hour run so far this year: 192NM on our log, which is probably a true distance of about 173NM as our log over-reads by around 10%; this is an average speed of 7.2 kts. (At one point we were up to 12.1 kts!)

We all slept OK last night, but could do better, plus Cally has been feeling a bit sick, joined by Rob on Wednesday, despite the improving sea state. James has been sick a couple of times, but then immediately carries on as normal. Emily was a bit anxious at the beginning of the sail, but now both children have settled into it remarkably quickly, helped along by a good Harry Potter film. Phil and Andy have been great at mucking in and helping out - with us all taking turns to do jobs down below, to avoid feeling too queasy. Supper tonight was a complete joint effort from all the crew! (Bangers, mash and green beans, followed by lots of orange quarters. We are majoring on oranges for the next 24 hours: they're all ripe at once and need eating fast!)

We saw bottlenose dolphins on Wednesday afternoon, which is always a great pleasure. Otherwise, all well and we will be feeling much better tomorrow after some better sleep now that the sea state is rather calmer.