Arggh. So close.

Nice morning that everyone woke to.

No drama over night.

Crew rested.

A couple of days ago I found what I thought was a washer loose on the bow directly under the radar. That poor radar had been banging around up there for so long that I felt sorry for it and didn’t give it much thought. Now, looking closer at it it doesn’t appear to have the flat shape of a washer. It had strange contours under it and it was slightly elliptical. What the heck could that be from I wondered? Went back to the bow and scanned the deck. No more loose parts. There was no damage to the standing rigging bolted to the deck and all of the fairleads, blocks, friction rings etc seemed to be fine. Standing back up by the mast I saw it. The track that our brand new whisker pole is attached to the mast with is beginning the slow process of being ripped out of the mast. Three rivets were missing and two more were barely hanging on. If the track went then the pole would go too and we would have 5 meter (12 ft) of swaying crashing madness on the foredeck trying to take out both rigging and crew as the boat rolled and the Genoa sail swung it around wildly.

Nothing like that happened and hopefully won’t if we reduce the headsail by furling it taking pressure off the track.

Bummer for the damage. Relief that we found it before it turned into something more unpleasant!

We must be getting closer to land. A pod of 4 dolphins blasted in bouncing through the waves and circled TUI for about half an hour. Good to see them checking in on us and taking care of any stray dragons that may have been lurking about.