Daily Log 1 - 11th May 2006

This first log of the trip comes to you as we are exiting the channel between Anguilla and St Martin heading north-east for the Azores, nearly 2,500 miles away. It has been very hot recently with lots of rain and light winds, and the light winds have carried over to today. Now, light winds are fine, but no wind isn't! We'll let you know how it goes.

How did we come to get here? The crew met up last Saturday in Nelson's Dockyard, Antigua, just after Northern Child had finished Antigua Race Week. Our first night out together was up to Shirley Heights for sunset drinks, dinner and getting to know each other. Not a bad way to start. Sunday we set sail for a quick stop in Jolly Harbour with a swim en route and we cleared Antigua in the afternoon and had a good night sail over to St Martin.

The first three days of this week have been spent changing the boat over to cruising mode and stocking up with food for an average voyage time to the Azores of 15 days. Unfortunately one of our American crew, Sarge had to drop out due to personal reasons and so we leave for Europe with a total crew of 9 on board.

Over the next couple of logs I will introduce the crew but I shall start with Nina and Myself. Nina is the full time mate/cook and has been aboard Northern Child since the New Year. She has sailed the length of the Caribbean with us and competed in the three major Regattas, St Martin, BVI's and Antigua. Nina has just completed her degree and is finishing the Atlantic Circuit, having sailed across to the Caribbean on another boat, Shalan. We are lucky to have her with us.

My name is Julian, I am the owner and Captain of Northern Child and together we are on our 10th Transatlantic crossing in the last five years. I am also the author of these logs and I hope that they bring to you a flavour of what it is like on board Northern child on an Ocean Crossing. Northern Child is a beautiful Swan 51, built in 1984 and in superb condition. We are fully equipped for ocean sailing and amongst other things have a generator and watermaker on board.

It is now mid afternoon and despite there being quite heavy cloud cover, it is a great afternoon to go for a sail! We have an average of 8 knots of light breeze from the east and we are on our rhumb line course (the shortest distance between two points) for the Azores making an average speed of about 6 knots. ETA into the Azores is some 14-17 days from here.

The sea is flat, a nice light breeze, Anguilla is just slipping past off our port side, Nina has a curry on the go for our evening meal and all's well with all of us on board Northern Child. More tomorrow.

Daily Log - Northern Child - 12th May 2006

Close encounters with a turtle/whale/water spout.
Position: 19.37N 61.23W

We have had a busy and exciting 24 hours since the last log - it had looked like it would be a quiet 24 hours as we cleared north of Anguilla . But oh no, that wasn't to be the case!

The first thing that happened as we cleared St Martin was that we sailed past quite a large leatherback turtle, just lazing on the surface. He looked around at us and quickly decided it was better under water; some of these leatherbacks can live to a fine old age, longer than a human. Lovely.

As we were sailing at about 6 knots past Anguilla , we got a really excited call from on deck of whale! When this normally happens you rush up on deck to see .... nothing! Not this time. We had a pod of about four humpbacks playing on the surface about 1/4 of a mile away from us. First we saw about 3 or 4 complete breaches, where the whale leaps clear of the water, and this was followed for about 20 minutes as we sailed past them with lots of blows and flippers repeatedly being slapped on the sea surface. A flipper on a mature humpback is large - I would estimate at least 8 feet long. An amazing sight and we all took it as a blessing from the Gods for us for a successful trip. 

After our exciting afternoon we settled down to a sundowner on deck as the smells of Nina's curry wafted out at us. She warned us it was pretty hot so decided to tame it down a touch before serving - perfect. It isn't easy cooking for 9 in a galley the size of a small bathroom, whilst being shaken around like a Martini, all in 35 degree heat. We alw ays eat well on Northern Child and for that I am rewarded by putting on weight - hmmm. I just hope that everyone else does on this trip as well!

Hoping for steady winds on our first night out we had a great run until about midnight when the wind came howling at us out of a squall at over 30 knots. We had a busy 20 minutes getting everything back under control in the dark and lashing rain with myself and Nina helping out Chris, Roger, Dave and Bernt, our starboard watch team. Getting wet on the leeward rail reefing down in a squall with the sea water crashing over us isn't really a problem when the water temperature is like a bath!

Unfortunately we were left heading for Bermuda on the wind shift associated with the squall, but during the rest of the night the wind moderated and veered and we were able to get back on course for Horta. The boat is run in two watches with the port watch comprising of Charlie , Adrian and George and the Starboard as above. This allows us to add Nina and myself on deck when anything needs doing, normally at midnight ! The watches stand 6 hours on during the day and shift to four hours after 6pm , so that every 24 hours the watches rotate onto a new time schedule.

Imagining that this morning would be quiet was a mistake! We have squalls all around us and we are weaving our way through and around them with the wind going between 4 and 24 knots from all directions of the compass. No rest for the watch on deck. Continual sail changes and trimming, but we are still going roughly in the right direction, it's hot and the sea is basically flat - cool.

Astern of us a couple of miles away a water spout appeared - it was awe inspiring to see this develop just behind us, and kind of worrying to see it chase after us on our starboard side! Called a tornado on land, we didn't really want to get involved and I was relieved to see it dissipate away from us. Phew.

Okay, so not much has happened out here, but that's not bad. In fact it's pretty good, well, nigh on perfect.

You see, the psychology employed on this first leg from St Martin to the Azores is that for once you have a route where predominantly you can get light winds, flat seas and blue skies. You can RELAX! So lots of yachts decide they are going to motor the whole way, based on the idea that if it takes them a few d ays longer to arrive in Horta that would be a disaster. On Northern Child , we sail until we stop, then we try to sail again and if we fail, we try again. Why? Why Not? We aren't in a great rush today, or tomorrow, or the day after that for that matter. If we really have no wind, then we'll motor.

So what conditions have we got? Light winds, flat seas and blue skies! Do we hate it? Oh no, not at all. We all get to chill out, read, look at the stars and the moon, listen to I Pod's. It's not hard, in fact as I mentioned before, it's pretty near perfect. I know that for some of our die-hard Northern Child Racers like Peewee, Jim and John this would just be too easy - they like getting wet, exhausted and pushed to their limits - oops, sorry guys, but this long distance stuff is pretty nice! Mind you, I can't really take the mick too much as both Peewee and Jim have crossed the Atlantic with me; so come on, John, take a break and come and cross an ocean.

Where was I? Where are we? We are now some 280 miles north of St Martin and I am proud to say that we have sailed all the way. Winds are pretty light, so we are making approximately 5 knots over the ground, slow going. Our destination of Horta is 1830 miles away and the seabed is 5,130 meters below us. That's deep!. If the wind dies off this afternoon, I plan to stop and have a boat swim. The water is an inky blue colour and crystal clear. We just have to keep a lookout for sharks.... but that's okay, they're pretty friendly in this neighbourhood.

The big news of last night was that Nina did us a Fresh Tuna stir fry, using Adrian 's fish. We have just put in a request that the next fish he gets is a little bit bigger! Desert was her Banana Special which manages to turn a perfectly pedestrian fruit into the sweetest imaginable desert, and is a cross between truly delicious and truly sickening! Trouble is, you just can't stop yourself eating it. Hmmm.

The outlook for the next couple of d ays is more of the same. We shall suffer: the blue skies, the heat, the flat blue sea. Mind you, there is alw ays something to whinge about, isn't there? Let me think. We are not behind a desk, stuck in a traffic jam, filling in a tax return - no, it's pretty good out here. There must be something? Oh, yes, I ate too much breakfast, does that count?

On board we do feel lucky to have the support of all of you out there – we know that we are not voyaging alone across this ocean. Behind each of us there are friends, loved ones, willing us on and giving us your blessings in our venture. Without that support, it just wouldn't be the same. Not at all. So we connect to you through these logs, we say that you are not forgotten, we appreciate your support. So a big Happy Mother's Day from the crew of Northern Child to all mothers reading this log in Countries where it is celebrated on the 14th of May!

As I finish, we are sailing at 5.3 knots on a flat blue sea, and we have completed 137nm sailed in the last 24 hours. The wind doesn't have any strength in it, so it feels like it may die away a bit this afternoon. Have a nice weekend and we will be back with more tomorrow. Northern Child

Daily Log 14th May 2006

Position: 22.26N 57.12W

The winds have been great for us since the last log. We have kept between 8 and 15 knots true wind over the entire 24 hour period and so have managed to avoid motoring again. The forecast is looking pretty good for the next 24 hours, after which a low pressure trough starts to cross our route which will give us headwinds and maybe bring the sea state up a little. We will have to see if there is anything we can do to avoid it. We get pretty good weather information on board from many different sources and can normally see what is going to happen to us, not that we can alw ays do something about it!

Having seen a small rip in our large no.1 genoa, we had handed the sail onto the deck the previous afternoon, and replaced it with a smaller no.3. The sail now being dry, it was time to repair the sail and put it back up. Using some sticky - back Dacron sail repair cloth, we were able to cut two patches and stick them over the rip, out to two lines of stitching for strength. These we then sewed along the edges by hand - a long job undertaken by our volunteer seamstress George with help from Roger! Having just popped my head out of the hatch, I can confirm that the repair is looking good, and I think the rest of the sail will destroy itself around it rather than the repair fail!

                                                                              
                                                George                                                                                        Roger

We had an excuse to celebrate last night - it was Adrian 's grand-daughter Safia's 6th Birthday, so we were able to crack open a bottle of champagne - happy birthday, Safia. This was followed by Curry as it was Saturday night, and more bananas; they are rapidly going off and we have risen well to the challenge of almost finishing them!

Unfortunately this morning we lost the fishing line - 1 km of Dyneema line - all gone! So the likelihood of our catching many fish for the rest of this route looks unlikely. We do have a small back-up hand line, but without the proper equipment....! Not that we would ever blame this rather than our own inability to catch a monster fish.....

It's still pretty hot out here, 29 degrees centigrade at the chart table at 0800 hours, more in the galley. The interesting point to note is that the only person to get badly sunburnt and who is now starting to peel is our Doctor, Bernt, from Germany ! Way to go, Doc!

Over the last 24 hours we have managed to sail 160 miles towards our destination, our best 24 hour run yet, all under sail. Conservation of diesel at this stage is good news because we know that later on in the trip there is the likelihood as we close the Azores of there being no wind at all. We have sailed the 160 miles at an average speed of 6.6 knots over the ground. (A knot is a nautical mile per hour, and is named after the practice whereby sailing ships 3 or 400 years ago would gauge their speed by trailing a piece of string out the back of the ship and counting how many knots on the string slipped out in a certain amount of time) We have 1,764 miles left to run to Horta.

As we finish this log, everyone on board is fine and settling down well into the watch routine. The asymmetric spinnaker has just gone up with 14 knots of true wind on the beam, the main and the st ays ail drawing nicely and 7.75 knots of boatspeed on the B and G's. I can smell bacon in the galley - all's well.

Northern Child

Daily Log 15th May 2006

Position: 23.38N 55.19W

The wind stayed kind to us all afternoon and we kept the asymmetric spinnaker up with the wind on the beam until just before 1800 hours. It had been the hottest afternoon of the trip so far, really roasting, and some of the crew had been heard to mutter that it would be nice to have a rain shower to cool off. That was easy to arrange!

A squall came at us out of the east, with lashing rain and an increase of wind to 25 knots. Visibility was substantially reduced and it rained hard for about 20 minutes, with rain water cascading off the sails. Just as I was thinking of getting the spinnaker down, the guy stretched in a puff and triggered the quick release, so that was that, decision made! Having gathered a very wet spinnaker on deck, within two minutes we were faced by absolute flat calm, no wind at all, nothing.

It was time to get the motor on and reluctantly we fired her up and set her at long distance cruising revs, setting off at 5.5 knots. As we were all wet, happy hour of cold beers was amended to a warming mount Gay Rum and coke. Making the mistake of passing the bottle out, I realised sometime later that the hilarity on deck probably had more to do with the fact that the rum bottle was now empty than anything else - I have one more hidden away, but had better wait for a good excuse to bring it out!

In the galley Nina has to use as many of the fresh vegetables as soon as possible because in the heat we are getting at the moment, it is all going off pretty quickly. Dinner was a feast of huge Polish Sausages, mashed potatoes, carrots, cauliflower cheese and onion gravy - yummy. In addition she had made batches of chocolate chip cookies which really finished us all off. As you can see, the policy on Northern Child is that we don't starve and I don't think that we will be losing weight on this passage....

Luckily after only 4 1/2 hours motoring the wind returned and the port watch of Charlie , Adrian and George set the sails and off we went again. Initially we were only able to do about 4 knots, but by this morning the wind was up a touch and we have been maintaining a steady 6 knots throughout the morning watch. 

George is from Northern Ireland and a boat owner himself; he distinguished himself early on in the adventure by leading the charge at the bar ashore and holding up Northern Child 's reputation until early into the mornings - does that sound familiar to those of you who know him?! Unlike Charlie , he seems delighted to be sailing on flat blue seas in warm sunshine and reckons some of the boys back home should try it for a change.  

The wind has come forward onto the port bow as the low pressure trough that we are tracking moves steadily across the front of us. It should be gone within 36 hours, but it is what happens between now and then which will be interesting! The wind is currently north-west at 13 knots which is giving us a comfortable ride at 7 knots in good seas. The sky is basically clear with some puffy clouds away on the horizon, but knowing that the trough is ahead of us, this will change! It is a very agreeable 28 degrees at the chart table this morning. The first Tropical wave is passing to the south of us into the southern Caribbean ; this will not be a feature that we have to deal with, but is the signal of the start of the hurricane season, we got out just in time!

Our 24 hour run of 127 miles at an average speed over the ground of 5.3 knots in the direction of Horta for four and a half hours motoring is very reasonable. We have 1,636 miles still to run to Horta. That's all for today from a happy Northern Child crew.

Daily Log 16th May 2006
Position:  24.39N 53.05W

The trough we feared might be coming across us yesterday afternoon didn't really materialise. We had lovely breeze during the afternoon and kept our light no.1 genoa up, making a good 7.5 to 8 knots through the water. Fearing that the wind would come around on the nose overnight and increase, we swapped out the no.1 for the no.3 just before dinner to be on the safe side.

Having finished this, the crew had earned a cold beer and dinner was taken on deck - chicken fajitas. The wind came forward after this and increased so we put a reef in the main and settled down for a night beating to windward. Which wasn't to be. The wind slowly died away during the night until by 0420 this morning we were going nowhere, so it was time to turn the engine on again and 5 knots on the rhumb line.

The starboard watch consists of Chris, Dave, Roger and Bernt. Chris is Swedish, has his own 30 foot sailboat in Stockholm and crossed the Atlantic on Northern Child as a watch leader with the ARC in 2004 from Las Palmas to St Lucia ; Chris is alw ays the first to volunteer to do anything. Dave is from Houston , worked for IBM, has his own Morgan 38 sailboat and is fulfilling his dream to sail across the Atlantic . Roger is from Torquay and lives in sight of the sea - wouldn't we all like that? 800 metres away from his house he keeps his Sadler 32 in Torquay Marina; very nice. Bernt is a doctor from Munich , Germany and is a less experienced sailor than the rest of his watch. If you ask him if he is okay or happy, he alw ays replies yes, very. Just what you need in a crew member; his sunburn is slowly healing as well!

This morning we realised that our Yanmar diesel wasn't all that happy and decided that she needed a bit of TLC. Being such a great engineer, I changed the easiest filter, got diesel everywhere and started her up again. Okay, so that wasn't the problem! The second fuel filter was on the main engine and much harder to get to. So this time I managed to get diesel all over myself, the engine, in fact most of Northern Child . But at least this time we were successful! As good as new. We have obviously picked up some dirty diesel in the Caribbean before leaving, and are wondering how long it will be before we have to start looking at the filters again. 

Daily Log 18th May 2006
Position: 27.47N 49 .16W

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.... Baldrick's poem recited to Blackadder in the trenches about the sound of the guns. Only funny if you saw the Blackadder TV show. But it was funny, really funny.

Very appropriate if you look at the last 24 hours on Northern Child – We have had great winds, between 15- 20 knots true on the nose for the entire 24 hours. Which means that the apparent wind we are feeling is a bit higher - the difference between true and apparent is that if you are heading into the wind at 7 knots then you have to add that to the true wind strength to get the wind we are actually experiencing. So we are feeling between 20 and 25 knots on the nose. And the flat sea I was telling you all about? Oh, that's gone, it's a little bit bumpy out here now!

It really isn't a problem however, because that is what this boat is built for: deep ocean sailing. I certainly wouldn't want to be doing this in a lot of other boats, most of which are built for coastal sailing and not beating into the weather halfway around the Atlantic Ocean . At times like this, I am glad it's a Swan. It was my only choice really, when I decided I wanted a boat to do this circuit; a boat fast enough and tough enough to take it. Northern Child loves to sail, we're on our 10th Atlantic Crossing together and she's as good as new, amazing.

So why the Baldrick Poem? Well, that's all we've done in the last 24 hours - boom, boom, boom, as we smash our way across the ocean. In fact this morning the sea state has calmed down a bit and we are not getting as many waves breaking over the boat as yesterday. Sitting at the chart table yesterday, I could hear the waves breaking on the bow and rushing down the length of the boat over my head! We have had great speed, hard on the wind and are hoping to have completed 150 miles towards Horta in the last 24. Which, considering the conditions, would be great.

The weather today has turned much friendlier; the clouds from the trough have disappeared and have been replaced by a beautiful blue sky with a few clouds out on the horizon. Mind you, it's still not easy and everyone is working hard on watch to keep the boat moving as fast as possible in these conditions.

Dave helming this morning

On watch this morning from 0200 to 0600 were the port watch of Charlie , Adrian and George. When I first heard the Number 1 Genoa being rolled in, I went on deck to help. The only problem was they were so keen to keep the boat going as well as possible, that they were continually altering the size and the trim of the sail! I gave up going on deck...

It is a beautiful day out here as I leave you. The wind is 20 knots true out of the south east and we have covered 160 miles towards Horta, our best days run in the most wind we've seen on the trip. We have 1,221 miles left to run to Horta and the weather outlook is good. Julian - Northern Child  

Daily Log 19th May 2006

Position: 29.29N 46.40W

We have had a really great 24 hours of sailing. The weather has improved overnight so that we are now left with 15 knots of breeze about 50 degrees off our starboard (right hand) bow. This means that we can fly more sail and keep the pace on in flatter seas. The sun is out again and horizon to horizon is clear of bad weather. The wind for today could be a bit on the light side, but enough to see us complete another solid 24 hour run. The barometer is climbing steadily, a mixed sign for us: it heralds better weather, but at the same time we don't want to lose this wonderful wind.

One of the pictures from the boat today is the Port watch hard at work! As you can see the stress is getting to all of us. Mind you, it is also pretty tiring; we are working a watch system 24 hours a day, and if you come off watch at 0200 or 0600 in the morning, then you are pretty tired. The boat is continually moving in all directions and you have to always be conscious of how you move around, so life on board isn't always easy.

George, Charlie and Adrian on watch

We have now stopped smashing our way through the seas, and Northern Child is now able to slice her way through the deep blue water - wonderful. There is a residual swell left over, but this passes under the boat hardly disturbing us. 

It doesn't really matter what day it is out here - or what date really. We are completely involved in the watch system, and what becomes important is how much longer on the wheel, on watch or asleep. It's nice that the new day is greeted by a beautiful sunrise, and that the evening draws on with yet another beautiful sunset. That is how we see the passing of the days on board. There's no point in an ETA into Horta with over 1,000 miles to go; what we are interested in, however, is how many miles we still have to run, and how quickly that changes; that is our goal for the watch, the day the passage.

Tragedy overtook Roger during the day: his relatively new Tilley Hat went over the side in a gust of wind and he hasn't looked the same since. He is now modelling his Northern Child baseball hat - much more suitable. Also I definitely heard George saying that he was now going to travel everywhere with his sewing 'Housewife' ( maybe that is only an army term) and offering to assume all household duties once safely back home - he's pretty good at the washing up as well. [Julian has been touched by the sun - George]

Having just completed the 24 hour run and fixed our noon day position, we find that we have sailed 172 miles towards Horta, our best day yet and we are absolutely delighted. Basically alone out here, we occasionally see a ship or get one on radar, we are now 1,049 miles from Horta. Yesterday evening we celebrated sailing 1,000 miles with a bottle of bubbly, which was to be followed by a bottle of Red wine with dinner. Making the mistake of passing it on deck to be uncorked and to let it breathe, it of course, disappeared well before dinner! This morning we were also delighted to have passed the half way mark and this evening we should be able to celebrate passing the 1,000 miles to run to Horta milestone.

As I finish this we are sailing along at 8.5 knots with Chris on the helm, pointing directly at Horta. The weather is holding fine and it is nice and warm on deck, the boat racing along through the deep blue sea. We have a full mainsail up, our staysail and our biggest genoa; lunch is on the stove and sailing on the wind can't get nicer than this! Julian  

Daily Log 20th May 2006
Position: 31.10N 44.46W

Having had so many lovely days out here on the ocean, it is quite easy to get chilled out (in other words lazy!) and to put things off. After all, why worry? It's not as if by delaying something like changing the clocks, it is going to make a huge difference. However, the boys in the watches did correctly point out to me that dawn yesterday occurred at 0330, and we are only 30 degrees north of the equator! (The further north you go the longer the days, i.e. sunset can be at 0600 and sunrise at 0600 in the Caribbean ). So I decided we would change by two hours and put our watches forward to compensate for us travelling east - in other words, we are getting closer to UTC.

What's UTC, do I hear you ask? Well, time used to come from the Atomic clocks at Greenwich , London , but since the government decided on cutbacks and wanted to save 20 million a year, world time is now co-ordinated between the atomic clocks in France and the USA . As the French didn't want it to continue to be called Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, they came up with the solution of Universal Time Co-ordinated or UTC. There you go, hmmm.

The 19th was a bit of a culinary marathon for Nina; having filled us up at lunchtime, she went on to bake lemon cake with chocolate icing, for Chris, and a huge and delicious shepherds pie. We all declared that we were full as can be having finished the shepherds pie, but no one declined the offer of tea and cake afterwards!

Having had a vast empty ocean seemingly all to ourselves, it was a bit of a shock to have two supertankers bearing down on us at 0600 hours this morning! The one aft of us on our port side was large - very, estimated at some 200,000 tons by Adrian, an ex-Merchant Marine officer, but that tanker was never a problem and just slowly overtook us down our port side heading East. The other on our starboard side aft was heading straight for us, and our radar was pretty convincing that at 4 miles out, this thing was still coming straight for us! When considering the situation of the two of them together in relation to us, we were the jam in a very large sandwich. I raised him on the VHF and the Captain asked if we were a sailing boat called Yoshua, as the Netherlands Coastguard were co-ordinating a search for him. Assuring him that we were indeed Northern Child and what's more British, we were relieved to see him turn away. 30 minutes later we have the ocean to ourselves again.

We had an iridium text message from an unidentified source asking if we actually were receiving the messages. Well, we do receive them, no problem. The only thing we would ask is that although there is a space for you to write your email address, please don't, but do first put the name of who the text is for and who they're from - we have had some amazing guessing games trying to figure out who they are for!

Now a little guest appearance from Bernt, our German Doctor (whose sunburn has now healed!) : Wir sind jetzt neun Tage auf dem Atlantik. Die stimmung an Bord ist ausgezeeichnet. Wir haben eine herrliche Hochdrucklage und kommen gut voran. Waaahrscheinlich sind wir am 26.Mai in Horta. Zu erwaehnen ist das ausserordentlich gute Essen . Ich habe bestimmt schon einige Kilos zugenommen. Gewoehnungsbedueftig ist fuer mich nach wie vor der Taggesablauf mit dem Wachwechsel. Aber ich kann trotzdem gut schlafen. Thanks for that, Bernt!

At 1100 this morning a huge fin appeared out of the water on our port side, followed by a couple more. Much bigger than a shark's fin, as they drew closer they revealed themselves as a pod of Orca's - killer whales! That's amazing, because they do prefer cooler waters normally, although according to our whale book, they are one of earth's most widely ranging mammals. That was a first for me and for Northern Child !

It's a lovely day, although we have now lost the wind. A very gentle blue, blue swell is coming from the east and the sky is blue and clear as a bell. We have the asymmetric spinnaker up and are making roughly 5 knots over the ground towards our destination. We have had a lovely sail for the last 22 hours (remembering that we have changed our watches) and we have sailed 143 miles, which if we average it out to 24 hours would be 155 miles. We have passed through the 1,000 miles to go to Horta barrier and now have 906 miles left to run. Have a nice weekend, from all the crew on Northern Child. 

Chris, David, Roger and Bernt

Daily Log 21^st May 2006
Position: 32.15N 42.00W

Following Saturday's midday log, the wind gradually faded away, until late afternoon: the port watch was being driven absolutely mad by the 1.5 knots of boat speed we had, and decided to call it a day. Trusty Yanmar on, and off we went at 6 1/2 knots again to Horta. In the 9 days we had run up until yesterday afternoon, we had only motored a total of 10 hours and probably used 80 litres for the generator, so we still have probably 80% of our total diesel supply left.

The reason we have lost the wind is that the Azores high is moving across the front of us to a position out to the East, thus leaving behind a ridge along the 30 - 32nd parallel of latitude. A ridge means light winds, and it is this that we have to cross in order to try and find some south-westerly and westerly winds, on the north-west side of the high. Likely to stay light for a few days, this is no hardship. The sea is flat and although a little cloudy today, the weather is still spectacular, being 29 degrees at the chart table as I write this. Hardship, at the moment, we don't do – that will come after the Azores .

In order to celebrate the fact that we had no wind(?!) George and I agreed that it had to be a Gin and Tonic happy hour. Gin was placed in the freezer, tonic in the fridge and George cut up fresh lemons. Come the hour, I again made the mistake of passing out the bottle, well, as you can imagine that didn't last; will I never learn?! We need to arrive pretty soon as the alcohol will start getting low!

This morning the wind came back at us out of the south-west at between 10 and 14 knots, just enough for us to set our biggest spinnaker and head off under sail again. A blessed relief to get the motor off and have the peace of sailing again; not that the engine is too bad, really it's pretty quiet, but it is much nicer under sail. When we are motoring we can run the freezer and watermaker a lot as there is a large domestic alternator on the engine, so nothing is wasted.  

Writing these logs consumes quite a chunk of time, easier if the boat is upright like today! One of the big tasks I study is the weather; we download data files over the satphone for the areas through which we are sailing, and with software tools on the laptops we try to reach a logical conclusion for the next day's run, although always with a mind on what is happening in a few days time. Sometimes there isn't much we can do, as at present, because we know we are in the Azores high, but hey, there are worse places to be! At others we can work our way out of the direct route of gales or hurricanes, or place ourselves into favourable airstreams for where we want to go.  Oh, in addition I continually give them trouble on deck! 

Daily Log 22nd of May 2006
Position: 33.39N 39.52W

We had a lovely and very hot afternoon playing with the big white and blue symmetric spinnaker. Unfortunately the wind continued to die as the ridge continued to push north and east on top of us, until we decided just before dinner to hand the spinnaker and succumb to the use of the engine overnight. 

As it was Sunday, Nina decided that we should have a large Sunday brunch, without the Sunday Times, and a roast dinner. Lunch completely finished us off and it has been the only meal we didn't finish - a little bit had to be donated to the dolphins and mermaids. Dinner was meatballs in onion gravy, veg, Yorkshire puddings and stuffing; okay, not a slimming meal, but this time we managed to finish it all! I have no wish to learn how much weight I have put on since the start of this leg, all I can say is that it really isn't my fault...

Julian, the Skipper/Daily log writer

We now have 619 miles to Horta and the dominant weather system on this last 1/4 of the route will continue to be the Azores high pressure system, which has slipped over us to the south of the Azores . As you can guess from its name, this semi-stationary high pressure system which governs the weather for most of the North Atlantic is normally centred somewhere near the Azores - our destination. A depression coming out of the north-eastern United States will trail fronts all the way down to Florida and these should squeeze up against the side of the Azores High, which will give us some wind late tomorrow.

If you are living in north Europe at the moment, my guess is that you will be having wet and windy weather; how do we know? Easy the Azores high is over us, and for you to get good summer weather it has to move north - easy! This is what we are hoping will happen over the next week or so, so that we have nice weather on the leg from Horta to the UK .

The decision I have to make is whether to go off our route seeking wind and thereby increasing the miles to Horta again, or if we continue at 6 knots under engine until the wind comes in, we then should be able to make Peter's Bar for a few drinks on Friday night.... I will just ask the crew on deck in the sunshine which option they prefer. - - Right, that wasn't hard and it was unanimous - our objective is Peter's Bar in the Azores for Friday night! That is a real case of passage planning for ocean crossings!

Daily Log 25th May 2006
Position: 37.56N 31.37W

What a truly fantastic 24 hours sailing we have had! As we had hoped yesterday morning the wind came in right on schedule, from the right direction and at the right strength, and off we went.

Since yesterday's log, the last 24 hours sailing has been the best run of the trip. Throughout the daylight hours we flew the asymmetric spinnaker with the staysail and the full mainsail; with the wind at 20 knots on the beam we were hammering along with the boat being pushed fairly hard. With a huge deep fin keel and rudder, in these conditions not once did we ever feel as though Northern Child was going to spin out and broach. That's good, reassuring! If you have no idea what I am talking about, trust me. It just means that despite the wind and the huge amount of sail we were carrying Northern Child didn't fall over!

All afternoon we were visited by pod after pod of dolphins. At times there were too many to count, all leaping out of the water alongside us, and swimming along under the bow. Their ease of motion and gracefulness always holds a fascination for us. Sitting right up on the bow underneath the huge blue and white spinnaker with the boat heeled right over in the bright sunshine and doing 10 knots through the ocean waves makes a moment for the crew to remember.

Trying to be sensible, we took the spinnaker down just before dark, and continued on at great pace with our genoa. The food on this leg has been excellent, but dinner last night just after the spinnaker came down was awesome - I am reliably informed that it was Balinese curry! We have had a very international menu from Thai curry to Mexican fajitas to Chinese stir fry to Spanish Omelette to English brunch, oh and not forgetting American - burgers! Oh, that's a cheap shot! Yes, but they were good!

At 0600 this morning we realised that we were onto our best day's run when we had completed 141 miles in 18 hours. By midday we had completed 192 miles on a reach towards our destination - every mile counts! We have 146 miles to run and the outlook looks pretty good: we should hold this wind until this evening and then start to lose it during the night. We might find that during Friday the wind drops off and the crew have to make a choice – motor towards the bar, or sail slowly towards our destination!

You'll find out tomorrow. That's it for now, Julian, Northern Child

Daily Log 24th May 2006
Position: 36.58N 35.30W

Today's the day that we are hoping for the wind to come back. We have now got ourselves across the ridge and have positioned ourselves over the last two days a little to the north of our direct route, and closer to where we hope that the wind is coming from.

It has been a nice day, although we have had a lot of cloud cover continuing to build up, which we hope to be a good indicator of the weather changing. It's been a bit cooler; however, I am not sure that Nina would agree in the galley!

Nina continues to be a domestic goddess, whilst also getting called upon to help on deck when things go wrong; she provides us all with great meals twice a day. As a testament to our victualling skills and her patience in St Martin we haven't run out of anything yet. The alcohol front is looking a little thin at the moment, but it has been difficult to estimate consumption: for example, a bottle of gin that I thought might last a little while disappeared, between 6 crew members, in one happy hour. Likewise the rum....difficult! Shopping for 9/10 people for a trip of a maximum of seventeen days is quite a task in its own right.

Daily Log 23rd May 2006
Position: 35.28N 37.39W

Another day of good progress towards Horta, albeit the whole 24 hours under engine! With little wind, we are climbing out of the Azores High, just very slo o o o wly. 

Whilst motoring, there is little to do for any of the crew, except keep an eye on the engine gauges and relax. We spend our time on deck reading and chatting, eating too much and looking at the occasional pod of dolphins that happens along.

During the last 24 hours we have covered 138 miles towards our destination, leaving a total distance of 490 miles to go to Horta. We still have uppermost in our minds an arrival on Friday evening, and a little celebration in Peter's Cafe!  

Daily Log 26th May 2006
Position: Horta - MADE IT!

2,209 nautical miles sailed in 14 days 18 hours and 45 minutes

We have kept the wind all the way from yesterday midday right up to our approach to Horta, the main port of the Island of Faial in the Portuguese Azores Islands group. This group of Islands is pretty remote - over 1,000 nautical miles off the west coast of mainland Europe , and 2,000 miles from the Continental US.

We had a lovely afternoon's sail making good 8 or 8.5 knots on the rhumb line towards our destination. We didn't lose the wind as we closed the Islands , and so we reduced sail at midnight for a more comfortable ride. By dawn we were running under full sail once again, and with 18 miles to go just after dawn we sighted Horta away out on our port beam, wonderful! 

It's a lovely little port, with enough shops and services to keep the visiting yachtsmen happy. Situated facing the port is the famous Peter's Café, where I have no doubt that our crew will be heading to fairly quickly. Our plan is to stay for a long weekend; today we will complete customs and immigration, fuel the boat and find somewhere to tie up. Over the weekend, the idea is to clean and complete maintenance tasks on the boat, rent a car and explore the island. Monday we will do the shopping for the next leg ready for an early departure on Tuesday towards Europe .

It has been raining all morning - quite low cloud cover so that we are unable to see the volcanoes on both islands as we approach them. But the excitement is there as we are into the final miles, the final mile, the port appearing round the corner from the Peninsula de Guia. That's it - arrival - 0845 ship's time we entered the port of Horta ! Yippeee...

As we approached the fuelling dock, French and Spanish boats moved off for us - perfect! Nina went ashore to clear immigration, Roger to sort out a berth for us, Chris put the kettle on, whilst Adrian and the rest of us started fuelling up the boat - Poetry in motion. Of course, everyone is pretty motivated by getting to the bar at lunchtime! I didn't really say it like that, did I?

That's it for now. Leg 2 to Europe starts on Tuesday and there will be a log on Wednesday. Regards to you all, Julian and the happy-to-be-in-Horta Northern Child Transat Crew 2006.

After a break of a couple of days due to Magali having to go to London, here are the logs to let you catch up with our progress - we hope that you like them.

Daily Log - Monday, 29th May 2006

We're off! I had warned the boys when we arrived in Horta on Friday morning that we aimed to leave on Tuesday, but that we might leave on Monday if we had finished everything we needed to get done. It's Monday and we've left! What a great place Horta is; it's pretty quiet, but the locals are really friendly, the food is good, everything is ridiculously cheap and it's a fascinating, beautiful Island.

In this log I will let you know roughly what we got up to with the boat, and I will get the boys to recount tomorrow what they got up to - the two are not necessarily the same! 

We arrived in the port of Horta at 8.45 in the morning on Friday and went straight onto the fuel dock. Whilst we refilled with dies