Day 7

Well, a lot of miles under the belt in the last 24 hours! A really good, fast night with just the unreefed genoa speeding us along at about 5.5-6 knots. The ride is much less bumpy at the moment. We've then spent the day with full genoa and reefed main in steady 25 knot winds. We're entering the night with a full genoa and a double-reefed main.

First thing this morning we crossed the Tropic of Cancer and entered the tropics! Mum celebrated by taking a photo of me on the 8-11am shift entitled "First Morning in the Tropics". I was wearing full wet weather gear, 3 fleeces and furry pj bottomos. It is NOT warm yet.

We've had a really good day. Marcus hasn't felt sick at all, we had a delicious pie, mash, beans and gravy for tea and we've just spent 45 minutes with about 30 dolphins (identified from the book as Pantropical Spotted Dolphins) swimming, leaping and playing round us. The best bit was when they all went shooting off away from us, leaping along the ridge of the wave like salmon. We were all shrieking!

We also put the hour back at 11am this morning so are now on UTC-1. We're starting to feel as though we're making some good progress now; into the tropics, one hour further west, over 750 miles done in total and less than 2500 miles to go. We've also sped up significantly, are heading more in the right direction and feel as though we're whizzing along. All in all, good progress made!

Happy birthday for tomorrow to Adam, Alice and Duncan!!

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