Day 24

A good days run today, looks like nearly 700 miles.
Today started off with the usual grey mist, 30 knots of wind with 2 reefs and staysail, and during our watch, it turned into a glorious sunny day, with flat seas with a 3m swell from behind, the wind dropped to 25 knots and we could open the throttles again on the boat, putting up more sail and sailing a safe and consistent speed in the low to mid 30s..by the end of our watch we were sailing with full main and solent. It was great to steer the boat for speed and not in defensive mode,

In the afternoon we arrived at the corner of the iceberg area, where the remnants of B15J are scattered. B15J
Is the name of a massive berg that broke off the ice shelf about 3 years ago;. It was the size of Corsica, but it's now the size of Belle Isle, with lots of pieces ice around..

It was the most inrcredible sight, with huge table bergs and a numerous smaller bergs that had been eroded into little mountains. Plus lots of growlers..

I had seen bergs before nothing like this..we stayed on the north side of them, took photos and videos. Checked the radar settings and saw the bergs in our Raymarine infrared camera.

As night fell we are paralleling the zone of bergs, and have light winds.

After our great day yesterday of high speed and icy scenic attractions, we are now almost becalmed in the Southern Ocean at 52S.

Wind 2knots!

It is all expected, and we are going to have to be patient before the new NW wind arrives. We might well be going upwind again for a short while.
It is all a necessary part of avoiding that area of heavy ice, that was seen by satellite, and proved in our visual inspection yesterday..

Although we will be losing a lot of miles to Groupama 3 today, we can, in addition to all the sail manouvers required in light airs, use this weather to make checks on the boat.

We are going to check all 420 feet of the 3 hulls for any damage

Brian