It was magical… a miracle!
When I came on watch on the 11th day of our trip at 4:00 a.m., little did I know what I was about to witness—and yet not quite see!

It was a beautiful sailing morning. We flew the spinnaker and made good progress in the right direction. A couple of dark clouds threatened squalls, but they decided to pass us by without dumping their rain on us.

I watched the night sky, finished the previous blog entry, and sat quietly at the helm doing my watch—when all of a sudden, I saw the most beautiful shooting star! It was bright and wonderful… and just as I took my eyes off the sky, I noticed a small light in our cockpit. And there it was—the Advent calendar for the boys!

The day before, we had talked about it. They had been quite disappointed when I told them that, out here in the middle of the ocean, it would be very, very hard for the Adventengerl (the Advent angel and helper of the Christkind) to find us. Still, they never gave up hope.

So I woke the boys to show them what had happened—and their amazement and joy were huge.
They spent the rest of the day continuing  on the Christmas-bauble project and rewriting their letters to the Christkind… because now it seemed their wishes really mightcome true!

With this miracle under our belts, we had a wonderful day of sailing.
Nino lost his first tooth on December 1st—during his very first Atlantic crossing… and just a few hours later, his second one followed!

The cross seas made the boat’s movement a bit erratic but somehow it made at least me quite sleepy, so we all took it easy and enjoyed a relaxed day. We topped it off with a lovely dinner of potato gratin and salad, plus steak for the carnivores.

With less than 600 nautical miles to go, we can finally sense that we are getting close.
How crazy is that? Another miracle in its own right.