Off the coast of Mauritania and past the half way point to Dakar.

Wind a steady F6 from the NE, making 6-7kts on track for Dakar.

Three reefs in the mainsail plus two in the genoa. Sounds a lot but there is quite a big sea running and we are cutting across it so trying to keep things as comfortable as possible.

The Hydrovane is steering and is now working well. I have worked out why we kept luffing up into the wind in the gusts - the brake on the main steering wheel is not holding and the main rudder is turning in response to the force on it when the boat luffs. Tying the wheel to a harness bracket with a sail tie prevents it turning and all seems to be well!

The Duogen is keeping the battery charge at 100%.

The water maker is still doing its stuff but as we have no accurate way of measuring the level in the water tanks have to guesstimate the amount of water we are using and run the water maker on the assumption it produces 5ltr an hour.

We are getting some very weird and spooky voices over the radio at night talking to each other. They sound like bewitched heavy breathers. We can only assume its bored fishermen……………….