DAY TWO : We've got company...

Greetings from Eclipse!

Well, we're on our second day and the crew has settled into its watch system quite happily. Liam & Vince, Fran & 'Spike' and Greg & myself. Those of used to a 2-watch race system are seriously appreciating the extra bunktime this affords!

Yesterday evening the clear blue skies gave way to overcast weather and followed on to a generally star and moon-less night. No shooting star or satellite spotting, which was a pity.

The darkness hours were not without incident however, as the ever-changing wind direction made it increasingly difficult to hold a 000 DEG COG (the due North course we're aiming for in order to avoid the unfavorable weather in the Iberian Basin and Bay of Biscay) resulting in one of the nightshifts accidentally hoving-to more than a few times as a result!

The winds dropped almost entirely in the early hours, but picked up again as the skies cleared in time for my morning watch with Greg, during which we were joined by one of the pods of dolphins that had been spotted regularly in the distance.

At one point up to 10 of them spent around 15 minutes chasing each other and jumping in our bow wave. Fantastic stuff! Greg took the helm and I managed to lean out over the pulpit and get some great video clips of them, which are too large to send via satphone now, but will no doubt be posted on YouTube when we arrive home.

- "GB" (Giles)

Postscript : Obviously to name and shame the helmswoman at the time of the hoving-to incidents would be terribly bad form, but Greg has since christened her 'Triple-Lutz' in honour of the series of elegant pirouettes that necessarily followed. ; )

Well, 14:20 on Monday and the A-sail made a brief appearance but we threw in the towel and have the iron ginny on. 5 Knots of wind and a swell - too unstable to hold a kite. We'll see what an hour's worth of "battery charging" will do.

No fish yet and we're nearly out of the area reported to be good fishing grounds. We've had as many as four lines out at one time, so this has provided endless hours of amusement while we untangle the mess.....My turn to cook tonight - no fish, but I did find the chili powder - so time to introduce the brits to a bit of tex mex and maybe a frozen margarita or two.

We expect light airs for a day or two more as we make our Northing before turning on the rumbh line for Falmouth. One of the other boats made for Falmouth directly from the Azores - and paid for it last night with 30 knot head winds and are now reportedly heading for Africa! We've actually had two good days of SSB calls where we picked up this info. We also understand the 36 ton 55' Oyster is under motor for Kinsale way up ahead of us - with enough juice to run the microwave and the watermaker for showers this morning. Were do I get one of those!

Anyway, the calm we are in is giving us time for some boat work - we've rewipped the frayed halyards and we might even have a look at the always dead autopilot, the malfunctioning AIS or even the dead E120 nav station keyboard. So much excitement, Spike can't contain himself.

- Greg