We've had a bit of everything this week. No wind, wind to spare, sunshine, torrential rain, and mist so you could barely see the spinnaker to trim - let alone the icebergs up ahead!

After our blast out of Boston 14 yachts parked up for 48 hours and drifting around in the current within sight of each other. The lightweight kite hung like a curtain over the spreaders and we got excited when boat speed crept above 2 knots. The only thing that kept us going was that the rest of the fleet were in the same spot. But it was a depressing time - this blew our hopes of a speedy crossing and started us wondering how many days we'll go hungry at the end. We pinned our hopes on tropical storm "anna" who was forecast to come screaming up from the Caribbean. Sadly, she was out of puff by the time she arrived and only managed to give us a day and a half of 20knots in the face. That was with the torrential rain. Miserable, but good to be moving and also to have a play on the foredeck in our drysuits again. Dare I say I even enjoyed the sail changes! We took to doing themed changes - our last was Shakespearean: "Prithee, bowman, wilst thou hank on the number 2". You had to be there. Time we came home!

After a struggle to clear waypoint alpha, we headed off in decent wind under the flanker, northeast into iceberg territory. Yes, back there again, but with mist this time so glued to the radar. We're all heading north to try to skirt round a huge high sitting in our path. Couldn't handle another parking lot.

Enjoying more wildlife than we've seen on all the other legs - whales, sharks, dolphins, huge jellyfish and even a sunfish. It's also new to have the sun rising behind us and setting over the bow. We like that! The GPS tells us it's 1,600 miles to the Scilly Isles. Our race instructions inform us, helpfully, to pass "Ireland to port". Once there we're allowed to play our Leg 6 tape, a compilation assembled by one of our hard core shore crew. A stereo- buster of Pomp and Circumstance, Jerusalem, Rule Britannia, and of course "Walking on Sunshine"! The theory is to keep us going up the Channel, or possibly, have us arrive weeping wrecks or insane!

We're just on the East Atlantic chart with England in the top right hand corner. It looks so small! But I'd go for a small island any day! With any luck (looking at the wind speed right now, we could do with some) only 10 days to go. There'll be that ground rush feeling soon...

Yours, about to go on deck and do a wind dance, Sarah.