Noon position 22:19.5N 21:14.5W

Days run a still unimpressive 124nm

Well day five and we’re still rolling along. We had a bumpy night last night, the wind was between 30 and 35kts for most of the night which isn’t a problem in itself as we’re going downwind, but it does create a big swell of between 3 and 4 metres which isn’t so nice. We’re probably better off than a monohull as we don’t tend to roll around too much but even so it’s pretty uncomfortable. We reefed the sails quite deeply (i.e. made them smaller) before dark last night to reduce speed and make things a bit less noisy which helped a bit.

The wind’s dropped a bit now to around 20-25kts but the swell’s still there, hopefully as we get further south that will improve – we heard another yacht on the radio earlier which is down around 15 degrees north, i.e. right in the trade wind area, and they say the conditions are wonderful. Grrrr. Never mind, we’re getting there…

On a more positive note the fish we caught last night (which I told you was a dorada but is actually a dorado, a dorada being the Spanish name for a type of bream – a dorado is also known as mahimahi or dolphin fish) was lovely. Since my fillets looked like they’d been involved in some sort of accident we cut them into chunks, dusted them in seasoned flour and shallow fried them in butter and olive oil. Scrummy. Gordon Ramsay would no doubt charge you £25 for the same thing while swearing at you and the fish could never be as fresh. On the other hand he wouldn’t cover the back of your boat with blood and guts and shake you up and down while you ate your dinner, so I suppose there are plus points to either approach.

And here at last is the ham, being demonstrated by my glamorous assistant. Doesn’t that just make you salivate?