Sunday's Fiddling Soft Glide

May 26 1220 GMT 3816N 4005W Wind SW 13kts Sunny Seas 4ft Beam reach full main and jib at 6.5kts

Like the Phantom's dinghy we are gliding over the Atlantic stage, and we could be having a June day out on the Long Island Sound -except that we cannot see any land. Yesterday we hit a couple of bugs. And about time too: we had been bug-free for 13 sailing days!

First, the Autopilot went on strike. So we hand steered while we waited for Jay Fiddler-Kay, the maintenance guy, to show up. He fiddled with the wires to the drive's computer brain box, and nothing happened. He fiddled with the power on and off; he called in Jay Sparky-Kay with his volt meter and they fiddled with more switches on and off; and nothing happened. So they went down to the pub for a beer, and while they were away, JFK read the manual! And watched the Autopilot trying to start, and made a lucky guess: he went bravely amongst the buttons and pressed here and there to disengage from the autopilot the speed wheel (that sits down on the hull and measures the boat's speed through the water). Hey Presto!

Then the modem would not come online to send out these updates. More fiddling! No luck there, though: so no update yesterday. Sitting here typing this and hoping that the dear lovely little modem will work today. If you are reading this, it did.

And meantime the sailing continues to be smooth and quite fast, but we do expect to slow a bit as the wind lessens: so we will probably not make Lajes Harbour on Flores until Thursday.

And today is The Celebration for Bob's BIG birthday: Nancy has baked a Brownie Cake and we have some fun planned!

John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave