It’s been a pleasant day, even if our speed has been less than what we’ve hoped for. I decided to ditch the idea of stopping by Helgoland in favour of sailing. The steel genoa will be taken out only if SOG drops to 2-2,5 kn. So far it hasn’t, and we are loving finally not having to tack upwind in choppy waves.

The weather is cloudy at the moment, but the wind which is around 8 knots is pretty warm. Due to the clouds, it’s darker than on any night so far.. since we’re in the North Sea, thee are a bunch of platforms that light the horizon. We are passing one called Paragon Prospector 1 (53° 40.686’ N 6° 17.256’ E) at the moment.

The VHF traffic is a lot lighter the further east we go. In the Channel the chatter was constant and we could hear Dover Coastguard all the way in Den Helder. Now we’re not even interrupted by navigational warnings reports. The marine traffic is also lighter, even though we’re heading for the worlds busiest canal.

Still another hour on this watch, and we might make it all the way to the north side Riffgat windmill park. That’s still roughly 90 NM to Cuxhaven, at least 16 hours still to go.