Wednesday night turns out to be a night to remember, or one to forget, depending on your point of view. It's the first night in three weeks that we feel the need to use our Snugpak sleeping bags, but more to the point, it's a pain-racked night of little sleep.

We'd been warned to expect to lose our following sea for a while, and just about on cue comes the head sea. It's not as awful as our Caribbean experience, but we're down to around 10 knots, and the up and down slamming is enough to cause injuries.

Alan is nursing bruises in various places, whilst I've rekindled my back injury - able to stand up or lie down, but not to sit unsupported. Steve is fine, although he's probably in credit after having suffered a vicious bout of food poisoning a couple of days ago. As day breaks, the wind has dropped, and we're now making a comfortable 20 knots. So we will be in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Friday morning.

As we pass the US border into Canada, I'm able to reveal we did rather buck the system as far as US immigration rules are concerned. When we did all the paperwork in Kodiak, Alaska at the beginning of June, we were given a six month cruising permit, and then royally ripped off 195 dollars each for a 30 day visa. Not so much land of the free as home of the pay!

Of course, we didn't bank on further delays in California or the Caribbean, so by the time we reappeared on the US east coast at Fort Lauderdale, our visas had long expired. Much as we love our many friends in America, there was no way we could afford another six hundred dollars for two short stops, so we kept stumm on all matters official. Sorry...

But for all that, there's the feeling that we're now on home ground. Having crossed the Atlantic via St John's and the Azores last year, we know what to expect. In fact, there's every possibility that with the forecast of better conditions than we experienced last year, we may even get across quicker. If Neptune is kind to us, we should be in Gibraltar next weekend, and home very shortly afterwards. Fingers crossed...

Clive Tully

Copyright Clive Tully ©2002
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