Tuesday 6 June

Woke up grumbling – at least J can’t hear me curse and swear and moan, so I can do that as much as I like! I don’t want to get up but my hips and knees ache from the relentless motion. It’s alright when I’m up.

J greets me with “Fog” – how strange it is to go on deck, see the sun above – it’s very bright – but all around is the cold white fog. J has got 2 GPS systems working now, and the radar, so no excuses for being lost, nor bumping into the occasional fishing boat darting around out there. Still like to look out, though. The chart tells us we are in the North Atlantic Ocean. No weather reports for here at the moment, but it would seem to be a choice of either: fog, gale, dead calm. I’ve seen The Perfect Storm twice, thank you, and I’ll stick with fog and calm. It might mean motoring to Nova Scotia (Nouvelle Ecosse – all charts now bilingual), with what small wind there is dead on the nose, but the alternative … If it carries on like this, fingers crossed, I will have crossed the North Sea, Biscay, S China Sea and now part of the North Atlantic Ocean – how I love the enormity of the word Ocean – and all flat enough to walk on! Keep it up, gods.
A word on the engine – a demented, howling, screaming, demonic beast, yet we can’t get anywhere without it. J tends to the beast as if it were his delicate, precious baby – which I guess it is.