So, since our last blog, our first weekend sailing on Cassini has been somewhat varied.

We had ‘Double Fish Friday’ as following on from our last blog, Romain was not to be outdone by Coleman. He managed to reel in an even larger Mahi Mahi; his pumped forearms looking like something from an audition for Popeye given the fish did its best to put up a good fight.

Due to the light winds we had to turn the engines on for most of Friday. This also gave us the opportunity to have a washing and shower day. Frustratingly, light winds continued into early Sunday morning, so we pretty much had to motor sail for about 36 hours, with Nigel and Simon feeling somewhat relieved that they had stocked up on extra fuel before their departure as the wind going from West to East tends to be less reliable than East to West.

This allowed plenty of time for baking fresh bread (thanks to Pauline, Romain and the trusty Ninja Air Fryer), and eating lots of fresh ceviche and fish suppers. Although there was nearly a diplomatic incident on board when I (Liz) put Marmite on the fresh bread made by our French friends.

The calm seas and reliance on the engine has also meant plenty of time for relaxing and reading. Books range from:

◦                     Romain reading Papillon - hopefully he is not planning his great escape as he might have a long way to swim!

◦                     Coleman reading The Long Way, which is about Bernard Moitessier doing the first Golden Globe and deciding to sail on; so perhaps Coleman is intending to be a stow away on Cassini’s next adventure

◦                     I am reading the last of The Seven Sisters series - however my astronomy is not good enough to find them in our clear night skies whilst sailing beneath the stars across the ocean

◦                     Pauline reading The Count of Monte Cristo- hopefully she does not feel wrongly imprisoned on Cassini and have a future vendetta against her captures

◦                     Simon reading Crescent Dawn by Dirk Clussler - which is about looking for ancient treasures beneath the sea. We are lucky enough to have some ancient treasures on board so hopefully we won’t lose our skipper overboard in the search for his fortune.

◦                     Nigel reading a book called ‘How To Be Right’…clearly that has generated a bit of banter - he is currently working on his book review and draft to its sequel.

We were also lucky enough to see a breaching whale (from quite a distance) so no budding David Attenborough images to share, but it was still a very special moment to know they are around.

By early Sunday morning fair winds fortunately returned, allowing us to make good speed generally in the right direction. We are still aiming slightly North of our final destination to try and avoid a forecasted High and impending ‘blue hole’ (i.e., no wind) which is currently anticipated to be in our projected area on Tuesday morning.

Morale remains high - the watch system means we rotate times during the day, and we all tend to stay on deck during the day, helping out where required, having a bit of banter, and generally enjoying the amazing experience we are on. We also jumped forward an hour today to try and stay closely aligned to the right time zones.

Liz