A quick one from us as we are about to go into Stealth Mode and are still putting up our camouflage. I won’t lie, the past two days have been slow and painful. We knew that taking the middle route through the high-pressure zone would be slow, but we were hoping that doing less miles would offset that. To be honest, the jury is still out on that one, but at least today at 17:09:41 things started looking up a bit (but who is counting, right). Up to that point we had been going southeast, pinching as high as we could to not lose any ground north that would prove too difficult to regain. But then we spotted a gap in the low hanging blanket of clouds above us, desperate for that to bring the chance we had been waiting hours for. And it was. Within minutes, we pointed at the finish (which is 650nm away) and increased our speed by 3 knots. I was so happy, I might have run around the boat shouting "We are making way point. Ease out the sails!" to everybody that would listen. Since that we have been moving rather nicely – even a bit faster than I had hoped for. Let’s hope the speed holds and that we do not give away too much room to the north. More on that in 24hrs.

When not sailing, Perseverance is very much getting ready for the big showdown of Holland-England tonight. With 5 Dutchies and 5 English we are both trying to increase our fanbase by subtle and unsubtle bribery. I very much thank Girts for gifting the whole boat orange woolen beanies when we left DC. And the victuallers have started a big ‘Everything Needs to Go’ stock take. Another sign of this epic journey coming to an end. So, if anybody is in the market for some bread mix, black peppercorns or cocoa powder, please shoot me a message

Ineke, Joss and some excess weight shedding Sea Dogs