We looked all around us and saw nothing but sea to the horizon, topped by white fluffy clouds. It wasn't quite like that for all our twenty two days at sea, but probably for about fifteen of them. The other days were beset by rain squalls and sometimes wind squalls, but fortunatley the wind was almost always behind us.

We were joined for our trip by Kevin Ballantyne, who was very helpful. He is an architect and had worked at Cooper Cromer in Glasgow for a while. He is now heading back for the states where he usually works, in New Jersey. He, Susan and Will had a number of chess games, the outcome of which was very close!

We saw very little other signs of human life on the way over. A large schooner called 'Ashanti' passed us about 350 miles from the Canaries. They looked very impressive coming up from astern. The sea life abounded however, with flying fish landing on the decks during the night and we saw dolphins of various species, including the rare rough toothed dolphin. We also saw short finned pilot whales and caught two eight pound dorado for our tea. We now have various recipes for Dorado, which is quite a delicate fish considering it is all muscle. The flesh looks a little like Cod and tastes a little like Haddock and Shark combined. The fish have blunt heads and a dorsal fin all the way down their backs. They flash a bright yellow and irridescent blue in the water.

The psychology of the crossing was interesting. Everyday required to be taken on its own, although we did relax a little when we knew we had nearly reached Barbados. We each did two watches of three hours. Will's watch was always twelve until three, Kevin's three until six, Margaret's six until nine and Susan's nine until twelve, each day, everyday, day and night. At the end of our trip Margaret's morning watch was in the dark having started in the light! It was nice to have our own control of time, instead of being told what time it is by the politicians. Our sunsets got later and later, and better and better the further west we came. We didn't change our watches for the four hour time difference until we reached Barbados!

Christmas was interesting, 250 miles out in the Atlantic! We had a few decorations draped around the GPS and some nice presents from Margaret's Mum and Dad. Dolphins came to visit us on christmas day, which pleased Susan immensely. They even played around the bows during the night and left phosphorescent trails and flashes when they moved their tails.

We learned the names of a number of stars and can now just about navigate by the sun and stars using a sextant. We do find however that the GPS is a lot easier!! We saw a rainbow in the light of the moon, although it was different shades of grey instead of being coloured.

Our only disaster onboard was the cotter pin coming out of the bottom forestay fitting in the middle of the night, which left the roller reefing and the two 'papillon' genoas bashing around on the pulpit. Kevin lashed the forestay to the pulpit and we lowered the genoas. It took us all the following day to sort out a temporary fixing and to further lash the forestay. Fortunately we managed to fix the forestay permanently when we arrived in Barbados on the 27th December but had to take the backstays off to achieve it.

Barbados is a warm friendly place and we have been welcomed royaly since we arrived here. We have made new friends in Port St. Charles and have amazingly found common friends and links in Glasgow. We were delighted to take John and Diana, Alyn and Liz, and Andy and Jila sailing on New Years Eve to watch the fireworks at midnight at Sandy Lane, the resort where all the stars stay. We were very grateful to Terry and Judy for allowing us to use their dock at the marina overnight and for breakfast on New Years Day. It was lovely to meet Judy's mother, Marie. It was quite a treat to be eating papaya and crossiants (with marmalade) on the terrace overlooking the palm trees, beach, and ocean.

Our plan for the next few days is to visit Bridgetown at the south end of the island and then to be in Tobago by next Thursday with an overnight sail from Barbados. Richard and Julie Weller, friends from Edinburgh, are joining us in Tobago for a week, so we hope to get some more snorkeling in and maybe swim with some more turtles.

We have been most grateful to Kevin for his help over 'the pond' and have been delighted to have hosted Lynne, his wife, since we arrived here.

The snaps will be posted later, but we thought you might like to know that we arrived safely.

Happy New Year and Love from all on ATLANTIA