At 19.15 hrs UTC I was at 36.11 N 32.08 W with 218 miles to go. I did not do a check at this time yesterday, but I estimate that was a 70 mile day. Back in the slow lane. Herb never showed up at 23.00 UTC, last night. Very unusual. About ten boats called in and we ended up going back to sleep. We’ll try again to-night. The winds stayed in the 25 knot vrange and I kept the storm jib up all night and a good part of the morning, a couple nasty squalls with at least 30 knot winds came through. It calmed down some and the sun came out but the wind is still between 20/25 and huge waves. I need to get to Horta by Saturday and am pushing the boat harder than I ever have, and she is taking it. Right now I have the 2 reef main up and the 90% jib. Butonly doing 4 1/2 knots towards 115 degrees, 50 degrees south of my rhumb line… frustrating. The wind is right from the NE where I need to go and because of the waves I cannot sail hard to the wind otherwise the sails just stall out. It’s like sailing through steep dunes of wet cement. To-morrow the same and then on Friday lighter winds from the East, at last. “Away we go” got ahead of me when I had such bad luck on Sunday and another boat “Moon Dancer” is also just to the N.E. of me. They probably took advantage of the calm day when I motored at 5 knots and they probably in the 8 to 9 knot range.

Posting problem: Matthias Klemm sent me an e-mail on Sunday that there was no Friday posting. So, I figured just one did not make it and I sent it in again. Well, it was the Monsterman. My web is hosted by www.hostmonster.com and they had a hick-up with the automatic posting.