Position: N 31° 04,8' W 072° 24,5' UTC 1200

Nautical miles left: 2184

Today is our 7th day at sea, the last two days our progress has been slow, around 100 nm in 24 hours. Weak wind from behind makes it difficult for Monitor to steer so a lot of the time we have been forced to hand steer. I actually enjoy it, standing behind the wheel constantly looking out at the blue sea or the shining moon and stars make me feel in better contact with the nature. If Monitor steers it's too easy to loose oneself in a book behind the spray hood. Although I personally don't get stressed by slow speed, we have two women aboard who get very restless by speed under 5 knots. It is not my sister, who like me spend the time dreaming about things that's possible to eat or do when we get ashore, or reading one book after another. Sofia and Emelie on the other hand are enormously restless, actually calculating how much longer it will take for us to reach the Azores with a half knot slower speed. They cheer each other on to try different sail trims and they have interesting theories about not going directly towards the Azores if we can achieve a better speed on another wind angle. I think it will take longer time when they change the sail trim and adjust the course constantly, but I let them do it anyway since I have no problem with an extra day at sea. This morning I helped them put up the spinnaker pool and spread the headsail, now we are sailing wing on wing and I do think we get better speed and stability like this. When I think about our last crossing I remember that they were restless like this after a week, then they settled down in the middle week and became restless again in the last week, let's see if it's the same this time. Right now it feels like the crossing is endless, more than 2000 nm left, but I know that in the end time speeds up and we will be on the Azores soon enough. By the way, we have now spotted a few Portuguese man of war, they look like translucent Calzone pizzas sailing on the waves, and are dangerous jelly-fishes. No more swimming in the ocean, but it is too cold anyway, only 24 degrees C. / The Captain