After two weeks at sea Olly and I are both feeling a bit jaded and I am hoping for three days of warm sunshine and favourable breeze to revive our spirits. 

We still have two mechanical mysteries. How did we get a litre of oil in the drip tray beneath the engine and how did the reefing line unravel from the drum when the genoa was unreefed? I suspect the oil was either to do with pumping out the oil during the engine service or I overfilled after the service and it came out of the dip stick tube. The reefing line is more concerning because presumably it could happen again. I will investigate when we reach Horta.

Red cabbage fried with onion, squash and cured French sausage for supper. We added garlic, ginger, chilli and soy sauce for that authentic oriental touch. It almost worked. Lunch was a green bean salad with tuna, sweetcorn, olives, sun dried tomato with a dash of ginger salad dressing. That did work. It would have had borlotti beans as well but I mislaid the tin somewhere between the cupboard and the galley. We would have had chilli scrambled eggs for breakfast but two of the last four eggs were rotten. There is nothing quite so foul as a rotten egg and all four went over the side. For the rest of our passage we still have plenty of chicken and prawns plus veggie burgers in the freezer and fresh onions, squash and sweet potato to keep scurvy at bay.

Our arrival time is now predicted to be around midnight on 4th June. I don’t know if we can enter Horta Marina at night and I imagine Oliver will be looking to bring the time forward by sailing as fast as we can. He’s been restless every time our speed has dropped below five knots! Annie has booked hotel rooms for the night of 5th June so that we can start clearing out the boat, washing sheets and clothes and rinsing off all the salt that has accumulated inside and out. When it is hot it can become humid and airless inside the boat so we like to open windows and hatches whenever we think it safe to do so. Inevitably we will get an unexpected wave over the deck or forget to close all the windows and hatches in rougher conditions. This passage has been no exception.

We normally average 5kts speed over ground, a little more since leaving Mayotte. 120 nautical miles in a 24 hour period is our benchmark. I heard today that the IMOCA yachts racing around the world in the Ocean Challenge (and which we saw in Cape Town) are sailing over 600nm in 24 hours. An average of 30kts!! Just like us they are using the low and high pressure systems to slingshot themselves from one system to the next. We must get foils fitted to Vega.