Well that’s it. The boat is back in Weymouth and this chapter of the adventure is now at a close.

Once we got back to the Scillies it felt like we were nearly home, as it always does, and we had some excellent sailing in the sunshine, with gentle breezes all the way home. It was cold during the nights, and it was strange to be on deck and see the lights of the towns and cities on our port side taking the edge off the stars after what has now been quite a few weeks of being offshore, where of course it goes properly dark.

Sam and I spent a lot of time on deck making the most of the last few hours of sailing - and keeping an eye on all of the shipping, which seemed to be in overdrive this time. The ships were everywhere; it was like the M25! Soon enough though we were round the Bill against the tide, and sailed into Portland Harbour and back onto the mooring.

It would have been nice to sit there for a few minutes and just take stock, but we were already late for our reception committee - Kim, and Sam’s wife Sarah and their family who had come en masse from Kent. We had time for quick introductions and then it was time for us to go and get the boys from school, so we are going to meet up and have a proper reminisce over a beer in the near future, to tie the trip up properly.

Sailing across an ocean, whether racing or not, remains as much a personal challenge and a spiritual experience as it does a sailing achievement, depending on your point of view, and as such I think it’s important to have proper closure over a pint!

Having now been back for a week, I am finally getting a few days at home. Eighteen hours after I arrived I had a three-day charter which finished in the early hours of Sunday morning!

I am enjoying seeing the countryside and familiar places around home, and seeing some green rather than shades of blue and grey. It is a bit like discovering new senses; everything seems very bright and vivid, including my sense of taste - I have been living on pasta and porridge for so long that I have forgotten what vegetables taste like!

The flip side is that I am full back to the grindstone work-wise, slaving over a hot telephone and computer, attending to the business and looking for an additional larger sponsor to partner us in the Vendee Globe which is now very soon. I can feel we are close... it won’t be long now I am sure. However, any suggestions would be gratefully received!

The blogs will now decrease in number, as running a business, even ours, is not as exciting an occupation as sailing, as far as I’m concerned, but rest assured you will hear me shouting from the rooftops just as soon as we have signed more sponsors, and I’ll keep you abreast of anything else significant that happens in the meantime...

My apologies for not writing for a while, but it has felt as if there has been nothing to write about until today, although of course that's not strictly true.

We have, until about 09.30 on Sunday morning, spent four days on the same tack... hard on the wind with 100 per cent cloud cover: a blanket of low clouds with no blue sky visible at all, usually raining, and not even a ship to break up the monotony.

We have one book between us which is Sam's. I didn't get time to go home after the qualifier to bring any of my own, (or any of the other things I should have brought, like Gulf Stream information!).

We have both read it now, and I contemplated reading it again. It is a children's book, "Why the Whales Came" by Michael Morpurgo which won loads ofprizes and is worth reading to your children if you have them. It is set in
the Scillies, which is appropriately where we'll be passing tomorrow.

Other than when reading, these last few miles seemed to have really dragged. Each time time we have passed any significant marker - 600 miles to go, 500 miles
to go - it has been a cause for celebration.

The trouble is, the boat does around nine knots upwind, but as soon as you start reaching, where the wind comes from the side rather than over the bow, the boat speed can easily double as you surf rather than slam. The boat
flattens off and you can move around on deck safely and below much more easily. Upwind, even staying put on the loo at 27 degrees of heel whilst slamming into waves is no mean feat!

Going upwind day after day in a boat built for reaching is like being given a Ferrari and told you can only use first gear. Frustrating!

However, since we tacked this morning somewhere west of Ireland and level with Trevose Head on the north coast of Cornwall, the wind is starting to free us up. We have less than 300 miles to go to the Lizard and the sky is
the bluest of blues you could imagine. Sam described it as the kind of blue you see in an aeroplane from very high up. You can see for miles in clear cold air that has come down from the Arctic Circle, and we are
pointing at home, which gives the spirits a real boost.

The talk on board is now of pints of beer and loved ones, (not necessarily in that order!), pizza and walks in the green fields. Not having seen the house for approaching two months, I am looking forward to seeing what the farmers are doing in the fields as I drive up from Weymouth, smelling the dust and rain on the earth again, and waking up to hear the birds through my bedroom window and then going downstairs to let the dogs out early and make a cup of tea in my own kitchen whilst the world is still asleep.

Being away makes you appreciate all kinds of things you wouldn't consider without having been away. Not long now.......

It looks at long last as if we have escaped the big nasty low - now behind us in the Atlantic.

As it sits out there swirling around in ominous fashion like a giant bath plug vortex, giving birth to baby lows all over the place, it is held out there by a nice big high pressure that is sitting in the Western Approaches. Good, we say here, we have had enough 50-knot sessions for one trip!

The only down side is that we have been getting headwinds for the past couple of days, so we have been flogging away at 9 or 10 knots, mostly hard on the wind, heeled over and bouncing around. Still, we passed the 1,000-miles-to-go mark yesterday, and we are down to 800 this morning as I write. 800 miles to The Scillies that is, which always feels like we're home, then a few hours back to Weymouth if the wind plays ball! It is really good to have the boat and Weymouth on the same screen on the computer for the first time in weeks.

On the domestic front, our poor old mainsail which, if you think about it has done getting on for 8,000 miles in the past few months and was already a long way past its best, is giving up.It is literally coming apart at the seams, and the back edge now resembles Dracula's cloak in places - a bit loose and flappy! Now there are no more big blows it will get us home I'm sure. The worst part was that the bluQube logo on one side is coming off. During the race to Boston I had visions of arriving at the finish line with just the "e" left, which wouldn't have been good, as this was the side they photographed, but we got it stuck down again OK for the photos. It is all coming adrift now!

I also now feature a set of indoor oilskins as well as an outdoor set, because we have a few leaks from the odd place - mainly the water ballast valves andthe pump, which could all do with replacing or rebuilding. And the fog we have been in for the past few days makes the chart table seat soaking wet. It is all salty now and attracts the moisture, so when we have to sleep
here, or sit here like I am now, you get a soggy bum! And I could do with some waterproof slippers.

Somehow, despite the huge size and variety of American supermarkets, we seem to have finished up with a rather limited menu which usually consists of porridge, cheese sandwiches for lunch (Yes, the bread is still OK!) and
pasta of some description for supper. For a change I thought we'd have some soup instead. Sam grabbed two tins of really nice vegetable soup, only for me to find that the main ingredient was chicken stock.

The Americans, I have discovered, put meat and soya into everything, and the former is not so good if you are a vegetarian. That's one reason why I couldn't do the Volvo fully-crewed round the world race: I can just see a
load of "hard as nails" ocean racers cooking an enormous vat of freeze dried beef stew for them and a side order of lentils for the poxy vegetarian. How long would that last? I am happier alone anyway - just as well really!

In the end yesterday we did manage a break from the routine - a continental breakfast of fruit, yoghurts, bread and honey, with soup for lunch and the last of the eggs, scrambled along with a tin of baked beans, for
super. Back to normal today though thank goodness; I like my little routines!

Sam had a Twix for breakfast though. I think he's all porridged out but too polite to say so...

Well, this blog could almost read pretty much the same as the last one! We lurched from the last windy low pressure system straight into a secondary low that had formed in its wake, as is often the case.

It is also usual that a secondary low is more intense than its parent, and this was no exception.

When it appeared it was forecast to be quite mild, but taking no chances and not really wanting to pound upwind in 40 knots, we dived south to reach around below it, as it was forecast to go north above us - but it had different ideas!

We again finished off running before 40 knots of wind, then 45, and at the finish 50 to 56 knots. The sea state was now really big, with again, torrential rain and lightning. The waves would hiss by and the boat would slide down their faces as the tops occasionally slammed into the side or broke over the boat. Pretty dangerous conditions to be on deck, all in all!

As the wind was building and we were trucking along quite nicely, there was a big bang. I came up on deck to find that the large stainless steel eye that the vang attaches to had ripped itself out of the deck, leaving a hole going into the water ballast tank as big as a £5 note.

You could see that the pad eye had been moving around a small amount for a while, but I didn't expect it to rip out like that. It had an aluminium backing pad, so with the stainless steel pad eye, stainless steel bolts and aluminium plate all swimming in salt water 'electrolyte' in the ballast tank, it had just fizzed away like a giant battery and dissolved the backplate!

Poor boat. We were both really upset that it now had a hole. I am going to have to fill it in later when things calm down, and then open up the ballast tanks and repair all of those pad eyes on both sides properly when I get home before we do any corporate sailing. No rest for the wicked!

At 0730 this morning I woke Sam to gybe the boat and turn to the east for home. It was 11.30 by the time we left the deck, with the boat set up on its new course! We waited and waited for a lull, found the pattern with the waves to wait for a couple of quiet ones, and went for the gybe. You guessed it: of course, the pattern went out of the window and we were hit by 55 knots
again!

I had been downstairs to start the engine and pump ballast up for the new gybe, but had to turn the engine off to get on deck and found that I had to climb up the sink to get out of the boat which was laid flat! All pretty hairy, I can tell you...

Then, when we had gybed and settled down, it took a
couple more big wipeouts to realise that the sea state was not going to allow us to carry as much sail on this gybe as the last one, we were just getting knocked about too much. We reduced sail to four reefs in the main
(very small!) and the staysail, all in 45 to 55 knots, and still managed 18 knots of boat speed, but it was much calmer and nicer downstairs!

After a tidy-up on deck we had to tackle things downstairs, and it was utter carnage.

Where we had been knocked down there was diesel and water in the bilge. Two boxes of food had taken a fall across the cabin and kindly soaked up some of the diesel! The place stank. Sam took all of the contaminated food out of its bags... some of it we were able to wash, but poor old Ainsley Harriott's soup had to go in the bin. I can eat most things, but not soup a la diesel!

Worst of all, Sam's sleeping bag had gone into the bilge
and got soggy. It is drying out now. The wonders of man-made fabrics!

Sam took some video footage of me fiddling about on deck and pretending to know what I was doing for the archive, which we can use later during the Vendee Globe. We'll put it on the website I think - the waves were pretty
impressive!

The low has quietened down now, so we have increased sail again and are trundling on now towards home, with only 1,300 odd miles to go to the Scillies. I had hoped to have had a nap, make some pasta for tea and then put up more sail, but the wind is switching off as we speak, and we will have to attend to boat speed first.

It has been a busy and stressful day, with our boat handling really being put to the test under these conditions. Not what I had envisaged for a nice leisurely downwind delivery trip - which was how I sold it to Sam.....

We have had an interesting time just recently.

Through the course of yesterday and the night before, the wind slowly built as what you might call a fairly energetic low pressure system passed to the North of us.

We had already made the decision to go South, as I thought it was going to be worse than it had been forecast a couple of days ago. By going South we should have avoided the worst of the wind, the most dramatic rate of wind shift, and crucially the worst of the sea state.

Just as well we did really. It blew up to 55 knots, with often a sustained 50, and we finished up with a short, steep Gulf Stream sea state, with the odd breaking wave: big enough to appear impressive on camera, and very
beautiful, with the occasional complete white-out as torrential rain and spray went flying downwind - but not ideal really.

There were no ships around, funnily enough, although the birds loved it, but even they avoided the rain!

While it blew we lay in our respective bunks like a pair of book ends, both of us thinking "Surely this can't go on for much longer", but that's the joy of going with the weather systems, they take forever to pass over you.

Neither of us said very much - things were fairly noisy. I thought perhaps we should have had a game of shouted "I-spy"... then Sam announced he could see some blue sky.

Within a couple of hours there had been a big wind shift of around 90 degrees, and the wind had dropped to 30 knots. We unrolled the solent foresail, shook out the third reef and started for home in earnest, with our boat speed over 20 knots, hour after hour. We fortified ourselves with the biggest vat of tortellini in the world, swimming in olive oil with grated cheese on the top and a yoghurt to finish!

At one time later during the night the computer said that our time to go was 95 hours to the Scillies... we were really hammering on! It didn't last. Today we are upwind again, against an eddy of the Gulf Stream, again, with the wind going up and down annoyingly in the
range between full main and one reef - shades of the race over!

After Sam saw his flying fish the other day, we both saw a flock of three fly across infront of the boat. They really do fly for ages - or glide to be more accurate. It is really stunning what nature comes up with, given the opportunity; we all know flying fish exist, but the possibilities seem to be without limits when you actually see something like that with your own eyes.

Unfortunately there were some small ones dead on the deck this morning - one an inch long, another a bit longer, so that was quite sad. If you stretch out their wings they are really incredible, with long deep blue stiffeners running through them. Their little bodies are deepest blue and silver underneath. The flying ones we saw were much bigger, at eight to ten inches long.

The artist Didier Becet, who painted them (and the penguins and gulls that accompany them) on the inside of the ceiling on our boat had obviously seen them too. Although he has caricatured them, he has captured their
slightly surprised looking eyes and intense but comical expression to a tee. I bet you didn't know fish had expressions... they do though.

Today is beautiful, warm and sunny, with some clouds. The sea state is confused still, to say the least, but the sun shines through the little breaking crests, lighting them up in a turquoise colour ageist the deep blue of the surrounding wave. Now it is lunchtime - I am going!

I am starting to lose track of the days out here. It is very warm now we're in the Gulf Stream proper, where we are getting (for once) a good push in the right direction - homeward - of around 0.9 of a knot.

We have just been under quite a big cloud with loads of rain coming out of it that heralded a new breeze coming in after what had been a light and shifty afternoon and night.

As the cloud moved away to the North West, Sam called me and said "Is that what I think it is, or is it just rain?". I looked and announced it was rain, but then realised that it wasn't rain at all, it was a mini tornado or waterspout thing.

We watched as it grew more defined and stronger by the minute. A dark grey curved column reached down from the base of the cloud nearly down to the water. You could see the spiralling column of spray in the vortex as it rose up into the flat grey base of the cloud. It must have gone on for 20 minutes or so with the cloud seeming to grow in front of our eyes; then it began to pour with rain under it. Shortly afterwards the tornado ground to a halt and the trunk disappeared.

I have seen waterspouts in Lyme Bay but never sailed near them. It just shows what large forces are at work in the weather.

There are two things that remain constant here whatever the day is: we have porridge for breakfast and I keep taking the pills for my finger every six hours. I don't know when it says "Take one pill four times daily" that it actually means quite as regularly as 0600, 1200, 1800 and 0000 BST, but it helps me to remember to do it! The finger is back to normal size now and quite happy, and I am quite happy it is still there!

Things have been mixed on the wildlife front. Before we dropped off the continental shelf of the US there were lots of whales. We saw some quite closely, albeit briefly, as they sank before our eyes, leaving multiple eddiesthat were early the size of the boat.

There were many in the distance that Sam located by smell in the first instance: when you are downwind of them and they are breathing at the surface there is what you might call a bit of a fishy odour, and even at a couple of miles you can see the spouts of vaporous exhaled breath going many feet into the air.

After leaving the continental shelf all was quiet. Sam spent a lot of time looking for the elusive Mr Whale to no avail, but he did see a flying fish at very
close quarters; it flew in front of the boat from one side to the other, obviously trying to put the boat between himself an whatever was trying to turn him into supper!

My dad e-mailed to say that we are now ranked 22nd in the IMOCA rankings, which is the rating for the Open 60 Class Association. Not bad, I feel, up against some of the big campaigns. It will be good to see how we figure
after the Vendee, which is my prime focus now that the Artemis Transat is completed.

Meanwhile, it is very hot typing down here, next to my as-yet-unworn oilskins. It will blow soon, the weather man assures me. Just as well, or I'll be going soft!