Terre en vue!

'Terre en vue!' shouted Manu as the mist abruptly parted to reveal the jagged mountains of the Kerguelens, laced with veins of snow and ice..

The mountains soar to 1800m, but we could only see the lower 200m, the rest remained resolutely overcast.

But that was enough to feast our eyes on, to take photos and videos. Before the mist parted we even took a photo of the radar screen, just to prove the island was there..It was our first land sighted since passing Santa Cruz de la Palma on Day 2..

We gybed twice to clear the wind shadow to the east of the island, the closest we approached was about 6 miles on the south side,

Fred at the helm saw a penguin dive between our hulls, and there was a lone albatross plus a dozen petrels circling behind us.

Now we are back on our usual port gybe, and are going to arc towards the north as the wind shifts west. This conveniently sets us up to go over a region of icebergs that extend to 48.5N to our East.

So warmer water here we come. Currently it's 4.3C, and really not too bad with dry suit gloves, boots and a surf helmet for driving..

Time to go on watch!



Brian