The last 24 hours had everything: highs, lows — and a new record.

199 nautical miles in 24 hours, plus surfing down a wave at 17.9 knots.

In short: we were flying.

My shift started at 2:00 a.m. Mark and I are experimenting with a new 6h on / 6h off watch system, which is actually brilliant — you get real rest without hating your life too much when it’s your turn. Still, it was dark. Not “romantic night sailing” dark. More like no sky, no horizon, just blackness and wind dark. And let me be clear: I am not a fan.

With very little to do, my brain filled the time nicely by listing all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, how I wasn’t enjoying myself at all, and how we could be doing something much less exhausting and still see nice things — preferably involving solid ground and cafés

Then it hit me: this passage will be our last proper stretch of sailing on the Atlantic.

Wow.

We’re really close now — we’ve almost crossed it. Suddenly I felt emotional, thinking back to Gibraltar not so long ago, how far we’ve come since then, and how amazingly the boys have handled it all. And just like that — poof — the negativity was gone.

We kept racing along as the waves grew bigger, until the wind slowly started to ease toward the end of the day. Then came the next level: lightning. And I HATE lightning while sailing — so much so that it deserves CAPITAL LETTERS. This isn’t a cozy lightning show watched from a house on land. When you’re essentially a metal tree sticking out of saltwater, it’s a very different experience.

So instead of speed records, the next hours were spent staring at screens, tracking lightning cells and hoping they’d pick someone else to visit. Speed: significantly less lightning-related.

The wind has eased for now — just a short coffee break before coming back angry. In a couple of days it’s meant to blow up to 40 knots. By then, we very much hope to already be swinging peacefully on our anchor, pretending we’re not impressed at all.