Arrrgh ... just lost the blog I'd spent 20 mins writing, ah well here goes again.

I hope that you've already seen from the official Race Site that the race has been delayed.

Due to the Spanish authorities turning away the shipment of the entire fleet's flares, we're delayed starting the race until Wed 9th Dec. Unfortunately the shipping agent failed to inform the authorities before leaving port that they had our hazardous shipment on board & as such were turned away on arrival. Wooodvale did everything possible to arrange an alternative supply but none could be arranged to arrive before the original start date. That meant a lot of disappointed families & friends who had travelled out especially to see the race start. So instead we all took to our boats on Sunday to do a mock start & a 5 Nm race out to sea  back to the harbour so they could at least see what it would be like if they were here on Wednesday. For some crews it was a blessing in disguise as it meant extra time to get their boats fitted out to improve efficiency & comfort on board, although some changes were a little more fundamental!

Anyway we took the opportunity to hire a car & have a trip around the island, which gave us the chance to get this high level shot of the Marina. For those eagle eyed amongst you, you might just be able to pick out the yellow paintwork of 'DiDi' moored lengthwise on the first double sided pontoon at the bottom of the photo:

I guess that this is likely to be the last blog before we set off, so Tom & I would just like to say a huge thank you to all our sponsors & supporters that have helped us to get this far. We certainly hope to achieve our goal of reaching Antigua in a respectable time & we look forward to posting our Race Diary reports on route. You probably won't hear much from us in the first week or so as we need to have a big push to get us down to the trade winds & currents but we'll report as soon as we've settled in to life at sea.

Whilst our Satellite Phone is our primary safety device on board for contact with the race organisers, we do hope to hear from you by text & the odd phone call. We'll let you know if this interferes at all with receiving our critical transmissions such as weather reports etc.

From land this is Roger ..... Out