This time it’s first mate doing the reporting, so there will be more about lolling around the boat baking bread and suchlike and less of the sailing detail.  Seriously though, conditions have calmed down a lot in the past couple of days and at the moment we have a fairly benign Atlantic and hot sunshine.  The seas still deliver some big rolls on a regular basis and our things and ourselves lurch violently in the worst of them, but in between you can just about live “normally”.   I did bake a loaf yesterday of which I am quite proud and hope to do some more baking if the weather stays gentle.  Of course the downside of the lighter winds is that we have slowed down quite a bit and didn’t manage our target 150nm in the last 24 hrs.  However we have covered about ¼ of the distance which is encouraging.  There are apparently some contrary winds ahead (westerly would you believe) so we have been heading more south to try to avoid them.

Skipper is still trying to catch that elusive fish for our supper, but so far all we have are the dead flying fish that we find on the deck in the morning.  The sea is an inviting 25.7C and I sometimes wish I could just slip into it for a little dip.  Before we started this long passage I wondered how we would pass all that time at sea, but somehow the days seem to go by pretty quickly, especially with all that catch up sleeping we do during the day to make up for the night watches.  Nights so far have been very dark and a little cloudy too, so not as wonderful as on the Cape Verde leg.  Haven’t seen a single other boat out there since the first few hours at sea which I rather like.  The Atlantic is all ours at the moment!

Gosh, only a week until Christmas, a very surreal notion out here but we miss our family and friends honestly and hope you are all well and warm.