Day 27

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCUS!!

We've had a great day! It started well with present and card opening in the glorious sunshine. This included a Yule Log arriving "by drone" and several surprise cards - Marcus says thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes!! Fridge cake followed midmorning (and after lunch) and then a game of pass-the-parcel with Marcus (surprisingly) winning a box of Chocolate Mountain Cookies Extra. Tea was the third pie and mash of the trip (a fan's favourite) and then mum had made a delicious trifle for pudding. All in all an excellent day.

The sailing has been pleasant too. We've averaged 3.5-4 knots all day on a day when the forecast was for no wind, and we're still going (just - with 3 sails up). The diesel situation has come to a head. After motoring last night we have significantly depleted the top two tanks and we have never before run down to the bottom 180 litre tank. Should we risk it for an earlier arrival at St Martin? The debate continues. In today's flatter seas we were able to change the diesel filter which was filthy from where sediment in the tanks has been stirred up in the big seas. Dad says "preventative maintenance, that's what it's all about".

We now have 263.3 miles left to go and the GPS is showing an estimated arrival time now that it's less than 100 hours! We hope this will be Tuesday morning but the wind is not looking favourable so watch this space....

We saw a bird today. It was at least 1.5 times the size of the White Tropics Bird and was black. It had a very distinctive long forked tail and it soared well above the water level with slow wind beats vaguely reminiscent of a heron. Any ideas? Alixora - can you help?

Just about on to our last water tank - about 50 litres left. No worries though as mum still has 140 litres of drinking water in reserve so we should be ok for 4 more days or so.....

Thank you for the blog comments everyone:

JAsk - 1) preventer 2) Noah's Ark or a Tanker at Anchor 3) No 4) Deep Purple

Bob - great question! How's this?
Confident - Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Alex, Jason Wilcox, Graeme Le Saux, Ruel Fox, Nicolas Alexandersson, Sylvain Marveaux
Maybe - Simon Cox, Danny Maddix, Neil Cox, Graham Alexander
OGs only? - Abel Xavier, Danny Fox, Lee Dixon

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