Our shift is due to start at 6am but we get a rude awakening about 530am with lots of crashing, banging and boat heaving all which way. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t right at all!

To make matters worse Huw was contact lens less and couldn’t locate his glasses so by the time we got up Adam and Will were already there. Paul had had a sudden wind shift due to an incoming squall, and the auto pilot had temporarily wrapped. He couldn’t get it under control quick enough and to stop us broaching (being knocked down flat on the sea sideways) and had had to let the sails fly loose.

It was quite a scare and took quite a while to calm the situation down again. A very rude awakening!

Paul stayed up for quite a bit of our watch, I think it gave him a fright, 40knot gusts, enough to ruin anyones quiet! We reefed in both sails till we had but handkerchiefs out. The wind and waves were being extremely naughty and Huw did a great job ensuring we kept the wind and waves at the right angle to the boat as we didn’t want it to happen again. The wind was shifting by 30 degrees and blowing up to 40 knots as the squalls came through Crossing big waves at 45deg is recommended. If you cross them at less you risk a sideways wave knocking you down, if you cross more towards 90deg you risk nosediving into the biggies – neither of these options are good!!

After our watch finished we were mum. A well earned rest, though Bernice felt all she contributed were silent screams!

We intended on making Hawaiian toast for lunch, but this was downgraded to Hawaiian wraps because of the big sea. (ham, cheese, pineapple).

We had passed our halfway point in the night and had to pick ourselves up and celebrate. We had beef stroganoff (easy and quick in big seas) and one tin of beer each. Followed by strawberry and walnut angel D :0)