Position: N 32° 30,9' W 068° 25,7' UTC 2200

Nautical miles left: 1963

It's fascinating how nights can vary. When sailing across the Atlantic Ocean you get a lot of night watches to add to your CV. However, no night watch is like another night watch, they are all unique. Some nights are cold, rainy, boring, tiring, scary, busy, exhausting, slow, others are warm, funny, exciting, adventurous, romantic, beautiful, fast… The weather is the most important factor when it comes to deciding the outcome of a night watch. If the weather is good, that is if fair wind is filling the sails, the boat is balanced and making good speed a night has good potential of being a very pleasant one. If, one the other hand, the rain is pouring down, strong gale filling the sails too much and the boat is pounding in the big waves, you know before having climbed out your bunk that it is gonna be a tough night. But at least it is probably gonna be an adventurous and exciting night. (eh, of course I'm skipping the fact that you most certainly will be soaked wet and freezing cold by the end of the watch). But I must say I think I prefer an adventurous night to a night where absolutely nothing is happening, like last night. Yesterday night time basically stood still during my watch. No wind whatsoever, no boats, no dolphins, just myself and Mr. Yanmar (the engine) who without any luck tried to seduce me with his annoying sound. Eventually some stars started popping up on the sky but sadly I didn't see any stars falling and therefore I couldn't make a wish for a Prince Charming to come rescue me from Mr. Yanmar. But as I said nights vary, and the other night a motor vessel on collision course with me sort of made my night. Onboard Cantare we have a SeaMe, an active radar reflector sending out radar signals so larger vessels with radar can see our position. The motor vessel called me on the VHF, but even if it was just him and I on the big ocean it took some seconds before I realized he actually was calling on me. Now I made it sound like it was something extraordinary he calling me on the radio. Oh no, of course not, he just wanted to know where I was heading to plan how to give way for me, an ordinary question and simply a normal call. What made our friendly little VHF chat so nice was the fact that we are out on the Atlantic Ocean where you rarely see any other boats and hardly ever speaks to anybody else beside the crew. The presence of somebody else on a big sea when you thought you were alone is very uplifting and inspiring. The motor vessel gave way for me and his strong navigation lights were visible for me the rest of my night watch.

Anyone curious about what we were doing in Cuba? I have summarized our visit there and it is now published on the webpage of our insurance company Europeiska. You find the it on www.europeiska.se and there are even pictures! =) It's in Swedish though, but to our dear foreign readers I think Google translate will do just fine! Enjoy! Love/First Mate