Still raining

Yes, it's still raining and we are still in Kröslin. When we got up this morning it was still quite windy, and although the wind has now eased considerably, and there are periods when it's hardly raining at all, the prospect of a 20-mile beat into the rain was very unappealing.

One good thing about this marina is the clothes-washing facilities. There are six washing machines, six tumble dryers, an iron, and a drying room. What a great idea that is - every marina should have one. So we have washed the towels and duvet covers.

We keep finding more bits of the boat which got wet last week and haven't had a chance to dry out. Our fleecy Ikea blanket, folded neatly on the bunk in the main cabin, was not only wet but mouldy underneath. All the bulkheads have condensation running down them so nothing is really dry.

We spent some time working out the statistics on the journey so far. We have covered 780 miles since leaving Suffolk Yacht Harbour in May. Excluding canals, which are slow because of the bridges and locks, we have averaged 4.6 knots and spent a fraction under 50% of the time under sail - much better than we managed on our trip to the Algarve in 2006. Our fastest passage was our North Sea crossing, where tides helped us to average 5.8 knots. Most impressive was the 29 miles from Wismar to Kühlungsborn, 94% under sail at an average of 5.4 knots - no tides in the Baltic of course. During three weeks in the Baltic we've covered almost 300 miles.

I haven't recorded how many days it rained. Stralsund was a gorgeous day and only three days ago, but already I have lost faith that we'll ever see blue sky again.