0730Z 02DEC18, Day 5, Gibraltar-Canary Islands. We sailed all through the day yesterday with winds around 20 knots. The day was cloudy and a bit grey with a tiny bit of rain. We sailed downwind with the jib and made good progress. Overnight the winds went down to around 10 knots and we motored for a few hours. With the sea state and the low winds we were getting rolled around a bit. We really needed to be on our asymmetric sail, but it did not make a lot of sense to put it up in the middle of the night. Plus we needed to charge our batteries anyway, so on went the motor. The early morning saw some more wind and we went back to sailing with the jib.
120 hour progress: 545 nm, 4.5 kts avg SOG. We are hoping to be settled in the Canaries for the night before sunset. Around 50-70nm to go depending on where we decide to stop.
We are all in good spirits and looking forward to seeing land again. This has been our longest passage to date and we are quite happy with how it has gone. The highlight of the day was that we were finally sailing without using the engine (about 36 hours straight). The boys continue to do schoolwork, dishes and watches. Yesterday saw more rolly seas, so we weren't sure how much schoolwork they would get done, but they persevered.
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