Pete Goss and his crew are settling down after two boisterous days at sea aboard their replica Mounts Bay Lugger, Spirit of Mystery. They are beginning to get to grips with astro navigation – while their GPS position is being relayed to their website tracker, they are navigating with a sextant.

On his blog, Pete wrote: “Today is a good day and it has proved to be the day that we have settled into the voyage. Although there is a little queasiness it was not enough to stop us having bacon and egg sandwiches at sunrise. There comes a point when the ribs need lining and we all feel great for it – shame we missed our tot of Talisker on the chart table on Monday evening for Trafalgar Night. Nelson, I think would have forgiven us as I am sure he would have related to the multicoloured yawns that prevailed through the night. We might have a tot for him tonight.

“One thing he would have approved of is this mornings gift of fresh wind on the beam which has been easing slowly to see the big mizzen up. We estimated that we would clear the continental shelf at about 0400hrs and we had a period of very disturbed sea before it settled into what I would call an ocean. Lovely deep blue and a much smoother feel to it as the harshness of the past 36 hours gets lost in the depths of the Atlantic. It is as if we have come out of hibernation.

The big question on all our minds is where are we, for we have not had a huge amount of luck on the Astro Navigation despite lots of enthusiasm. The one thing we wanted was a midday fix and would you believe it if a chundering great cloud decided to obscure it at the critical moment. Our best guess is that we are at 46 48N and 8 10W as of 1250GMT – go on, I bet you look at the tracker for a laugh. It is a bit of a stab as we don’t have a lot to go on apart from an EP and a fix on the loom of Ouessant and our first mer pass yesterday. We will have to see, but my sense is that we are a little further east as westing has been a bit of a struggle.

There was a great shout from Eliot as I was bashing this out and I have just come back down from a spectacular display by a pod of dolphins. They are stunning and I dont think the camera has a wide enough angle lens to fit in Eliot’s grin.”

Keep up with their progress on the Spirit of Mystery website.