Day 5 - Puerto Mogan to Antigua

Another great days sailing - logging a 128 mile run, our best so far. Haven't had the engine on since the fishing net incident on Thursday night the wind has been so consistent. However have had to put it on this afternoon (Day 6) to charge the batteries.

Day 5 had good winds, from the ENE between 15 and 25 knots. The winds picked up a lot just after dark and we put a reef in the mainsail. Still sailing under mainsail and poled out staysail which seems well balanced and reasonable performance (we could probably gain an extra 10 - 15 miles per day using the genoa but would have to be much more alert to gusts and squalls). Kate had thunder and lightning over midnight and had the GPS and VHF in the oven again just in case. She also saw a strange boat which passed down our port side and flashed lights at us - not sure who or what it was!

The Hydrovane is proving excellent and we haven't used the autopilot at all apart from when running the engine.

We are now trying to force our way more West having got into the trade wind belt, however we are trying to keep the wind on the aft quarter rather than dead behind us for better motion and so we are either sailing WSW or WNW, so WSW it is!