Position 14.72,-30.02 at 08:49 GMT
Wind ESE 7-10 knots
1795 miles to go. ETA at 5 knots 04:47 17th Dec local time.

You know when you have children in a car on long journeys you make up things for them to do to keep them from “are we nearly there yet?”. Today’s game is spot the white horse. Wind has gone light but there is very little swell so we have been able to keep moving. 2-3 knots in 5-6 knots of wind on occasions. The current has helped us make 117 miles by GPS towards Martinique with no use of the engine.

The forecast has another light day today. Tomorrow it should be back to 4/5 from the NE.

Still seeing storm petrels and lots of flying fish. Sometimes a whole shoal of small ones take off at the same time.

David0

Position 14.97,-27.95 at 08:32 GMT
1914 miles to go. ETA at 5 knots 04:22 17th Dec Local time.

Wind eased back a tad to ENE 4

Cruise liner Costa Romantica passed 2 miles astern in the middle of the night. You could see this one for miles as it lit up the scattered low clouds! It is on route for Espadarte which I presume is somewhere in Brazil from her course.

This what the doctor ordered. Pleasant temperatures, easy sea, and odd jobs like a squirt of silicone spray in wind pilot to stop a squeak. Still the occasional birds – storm petrels and shearwaters. Plenty of flying fish and fish showing on the echo sounder as well.

David

Position 14.64,-25.61 at 09:00 GMT
2051 miles to go.
ETA at 5 knots 06:50 17th Dec local time.
ETA at more likely 5.5 knots over the ground 18:50 15th Dec local time

It took us to 01:30 this morning to get the wind free from the effects of the Cape Verde islands. A full 24miles SW of the last small island Brava. A mixture of acceleration, (+ 10-15 knots),less wind (- 15knots) and 180 degree wind shifts. Enjoying steady NE 5 since then.

Will be listening to HERB on the radio tonight as he talks about the weather prospects – 12,359Hz at 20:00 GMT for those with a short wave radio. The weather files we get has a low wind patch at our latitute in a couple of days time.

David

Position 14.647,-24.270 at 17:48 GMT
2123 miles to Martinique.

We spent our last night at anchor in Praia, Ilha de Santiago listening to an open air concert we could hear blaring out from a stadium above us on the plateau. Most of it was OK!

Left at first light and washed the decks to remove all the sand and dirt. Needn’t have bothered the wind acceleration zone between Santiago and Fogo redid the job and gotus unawares in the cockpit as well.

We were able to read all the emails in Praia. Many thanks for all your messages and comments/recipes on the blog. We will reply when we get to Martinique.

David

Plan to leave today or early tomorrow.

We have lots of good photos on the memory stick but Praia internet, Santiago has deafeated us on the communications front.

Mary´s story of getting ready to leave Canaries and our time on Cape Verde will have to wait until we get to Martinique.

David

Position 16.7524,-22.9802
Baia da Palmeira, Ilha do Sal

Got the speed right, just light when we dropped the anchor. A good number of other boats here. Peak season. Some off to the Caribbean and an equal number off to Brazil.

We had flying fish all yesterday only one on deck for breakfast though.

Ashore it very different to Europe and everywhere else I have been. Very poor. More unfinished houses than finished. All the white people are tourists! Everybody on the streets rather than in the houses. Friendly.

Off to Santiago tomorrow and then plan to be off across the Atlantic on Friday 28th Nov. Will start the normal e-mails when we start that.

Signing off for now. Thanks for reading!

David

Position 18.674,-22.068 at 7:40 GMT
Wind E 4 ETA Monday Morning

The moon is waning to a very small crescent. Back home this looks like the man in the moon is relaxing in a high backed chair. Here he is sleeping in a hammock! Makes you realise that none of the illustrations of moon from the tropics made it into our children’s books.

Keeping the speed down at the moment so that we arrive in daylight tomorrow.

David

Position 20.787, -20.787 at 07:52 GMT.
Wind NE 5/6. 272 Miles to go.

Longitude is now a larger number than the latitude. It will stay this way until we return into the Mediterranean! Will also be smaller if we have to do the trip around South Africa.

In international waters again. More than 200 miles from Western Sahara and not yet in Cape Verde waters. Just missed entering Mauritania space.

ARC (Atlantic Race for Cruisers) starts tomorrow. Not sure how many of them will be using the same sailmail system I use to send this email but it may get difficult to send e-mails for a while.

David

Position 22.75, -19.30 at 07:53 GMT
(Reminder this format can be entered straight into Google maps to show where we are.
Stands for Latitude 22.75N and longitude 19.30W)
415 miles to go. ETA Ihla do Sal, Cape Verde still Monday evening.

We officially crossed the Tropic of Cancer yesterday evening. Feels like the tropics too. Sun is very hot. Dusk and dawn are very fast.

Dolphins had a new game for me last night. See if the crew panics when they belly flop close to the bow making a really loud watery sound! Great to have them alongside. Their surprise was foiled as there was phosphorescent plankton showing up their every move!

Had to motor most of the day though with no wind. Back sailing now in light winds and almost a flat sea. Pink spinnaker will be up soon!

David

Position 24.53, -18.15 at 08:30 GMT. 539 miles to go.
Wind NE2.

I thought it was going to be just ourselves for this trip but the dolphins are back. We have had 3 large groups visit. Half a dozen or so of the second group were well clear of the water on a regular basis as they approached. Almost like they were trying to get the best early view of Giselle. Just seen a storm petrel. He is 140 miles from the nearest land – Western Sahara.
More cargo vessels. We have seen one every 3 hours since the last blog post yesterday.

I hadn’t appreciated how easy it is to leave and enter the ocean currents. We are back in the Canaries Current now but for a period we lost it yesterday. 0.5 knot went to zero, sea cooled by a degree and colour was grey rather than the currents turquoise.

David,