move on

there was more to the story of the whale than what I told you. When Jean-
Paul spotted it shortly before 9 a.m. it was on our starboard side on a
collision course with us. Jean-Paul stayed ready to take the helm to avoid
hitting it . Then it disappeared below our bow and reappeared on the port
side swimming alongside us. Jean-Paul felt that they were staring at each
other. Then it rolled over to show us one of the fins that thy have on each
side as to say "hello !" and then swam away south. For Jean-Paul it was a
very emotional moment and he was quite excited about it . The same day
around 5 p.m. we had a group oh hundreds of dolphins coming to us to play
with the boat. Quite a sight ! Today the winf got very soft all day and
around 3 p.m. we set up the spinnaker to jump from 5 to 7 knots. Firmin
can't cope with that windand on top of that we see a squall approaching
from behind.Thi is an emergency situation and I have to leave the keyboard
to take the spi down. Thi was done in about 20 minutes and we are noe safe.
This morning we got good news from marianne and marie. Marianne saw us in
fourth place, Marie in 5th and eric, my son in6th. Altogether, it gives us
a big boost, as we did not think when we left Lanzarote that there probably
only a couple of boats that would slower than us. So to be in the leading
group is a great feeling. All that haapened only thanks to Jean-Paul who
has been doing 99 % of the work since we left Granville to the point of
shaming me to feel like a useless quantity on the boat . It's actually
quite humiliating considering 58 years of experience at sea and more than
200,000 milesby sailboat, one circumnavigation and seven transats.
Hopefully I will have recovered enough once we get to the Bahamas to be
able to run the boat again on my own.