To be fair they were clean on the first time I went to Gatwick. And I've only worn them for a couple of night watches since then. Trousers don't feature very heavily in my life at the moment.

 
Fia Tira leaves Musket Cove

It does solve the 2 month old mystery. "Where did my head torch go", the pocket of my trousers obviously.

As I put in the Tweet I got Katrin to e-mail in before I left musket cove. The weather forecast for this passage was not good. Its been true to its word. Half way through that sentence I had to grab hold and cling on as the boat lurched violently. This morning's watch was almost pleasant. Only once did the boat broach violently and I only caught the wind speed going over 30Kn's once.

Don't get me wrong its still bloody rough. But evening yesterday my watch the wind was 24-35 knots with prolonged periods above 30. Oh and bloody rough. 3 Gerry cans (empty ones) were washed off there tie down spot by the leeward shrouds. I tied them on I think they broke their strings. I tied them so its probably my fault. But usually when I tie something it stays tied. Ask Matt. Once on his Dart Hawk we broke the spinnaker halyard cleat, actually we broke it quite a lot, but on this occasion I tied the spinnaker up the mast. It stayed tied doing quite a lot of damage to the rudders when we hit Ryde Sands.

 
Left to Right: Moonshiner, Perigriana, Chisel, Aqualuna

Aqualuna

Despite being a rally we don't often have mass exoduses. Its a shame. The Musket Cove people offered to shepherd us out the reefs since the Customs officers had come over to check us all out. About a dozen off us left at once. 7 in a full procession. We threaded through the reefs with Aqualuna, Moonshiner, Fia Tira, Perigrina, and chisel. I forget who we could see in front, Simaderel went out a different pass. Natiboo might have been in front too or it could have been Aspen.

Bright sunlight 20knots of breeze made for some good photographs, even with what is left of my camera. Hope some people shot some pictures of us.