Never set sail without a few bits of 2” x 2”. A disgraceful bodge but it works v well!

 

 

The second jib boomed out to windward and the normal yankee to leeward on a very broad reach.

 

Time for Neptune to initiate some Polywogs.

 

The only shellback on board has to officiate,

 

but only once Neptune has received his propitiatory libation.

 

Once in the doldrums it started to rain. Hard! The skipper is washing his hair under the end of the boom.

 

But for a while it got calm enough to unbolt the table and have the floor up to expose the generator’s fuel piping and effect a bypass.

 

The Doldrums lasted from about 1° S to about 6°S, but then the trades arrived:

 

much better! Extra sun awnings were needed however.

 

About 200 miles off Brazil, when 100 miles or so from the Ilhas de Fernando do Nornonha, a huge pod of dolphins, some hundreds we reckon, joined us for several hours jostling for a go at the bows. These were the only sea creatures bigger than flying fish which we’d seen since Cape Verde.

 

Land visible ahead shortly before dusk.