Position           22:04.11N 020:13.43W

Date                2359 UTC Wednesday 24 November 2010

There is a change of reporting plan to avoid confusion, to me at least.  The diary will be written up to midnight of each day making it a reference to a full ARC Day; previously I was writing it up to 1300, the time of the start in Las Palmas.  Hence Day 4 is ending 11 hours after Day 3 was reported – now you see what philosophical matters we have to contend with at sea.

We are still heading south west in the general direction of the Cape Verde Islands. At midnight we were approximately 350nm NNE of the islands.

The wind returned small time at 1700 and from the west.  Hoisting the gennaker

and mizzen staysail meant that we were moving again; you have no idea how exciting 3 knots can be when you have been drifting at 1 knot for a couple of hours.  Reports from other boats at our 1400 SSB (Single side band HF radio) schedule showed that we were all suffering the same conditions.  Some had decided to motor, usually to get to the Cape Verde Islands to refuel and make headway in advance of the threatened depression.  Elizabeth, more than I but I was easily persuaded, was firmly of the opinion that we should sit it out and sail; who am I to argue?

The Gods must have liked our decision for we were shortly after joined by a large pod of dolphins, a real family group with dolphins of all sizes and maturity.  The water being both clear and fairly calm we were able to see them at some depth and watch them over a period of 10 mins before they moved off in search of other entertainment.  A wonderful sight.

Dusk saw us change mizzen staysail for main to have an easier rig to handle over night.  This was followed by a very respectable ‘Spag Bog’ – suitably named something entirely different on the freezer label; it is most curious how these labels move around in the freezer.  I am assured that this one originated in Coggeshall so had travelled well in various freezers.  The fruit cake that was baked on the morning of departure in the Remoska is going down well and Elizabeth is conducting an experiment in biological warfare, growing Yoghurt in a large mouth thermos jar.