2007utc,  30/17s  41/06w, 10.1knots boatspeed at 053T, staysail and 2 reefs in mainsail, wind SE at 20-25 knots, blue skies finally, barograph 1013 steady. Made good miles today in the right direction. The next low ahead of us that was supposed to retreat to SE had done so to a degree, but is leaving behind a portion of itself, don’t know if it will develop or not, weather files say no, hope they are right. If so, can cross axis of trough tomorrow afternoon, then have to make way to NE into high which is not well formed, sail ENE for a while before we can tack north to get into the SE trade winds. That’s the plan.

Lost some time this afternoon to my innate conservatism. Had 2nd reef in, big black cloud coming along (this was before the skies cleared with the high overtaking us a bit, and just got nervous with the big black cloud. So put in the 3rd reef, and there was almost no wind in the big black cloud, who can ever tell? But likely it’s the right move to be always conservative now. Finally went back up to 2nd reef later in the afternoon.

Watching Raphael come out of the Falklands, looks a nasty low developing, hope its not as bad as it looks for him. None of us need any more storms at this point. We did storms in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.