1000 Miles to go! 33:20N 48:11W

Kantara Atlantic Odyssey
Andy Hemens
Thu 24 May 2012 14:03
It's a happy boat this morning; we now have less than 1000 miles to go to Horta and last night the wind picked up enough for us to get the sails up and make some steady progress over a fairly calm sea. The weather forecasts look encouraging so hopefully there won't be too much more motoring.
 
The sea state is also making life on board a little bit easier and for the first time since we left Antigua we had two cooked meals in one day! Andy made veggie burgers for lunch and Ian made chili con carne for dinner which we had with fresh bread made by me. Poor Malcolm ended up doing a lot of washing up. The relative calmness also means that we are all getting more sleep which is definitely a good thing, although some of us are getting progressively more difficult to wake up for the night shifts.
 
Yesterday we saw some dolphins for the first time this trip, their presence has been noticeably lacking so far with Ian and Andy wondering why they saw so many on the way over but so few on the way back, the conclusion is that it must be down to the Caribbean antifouling Andy used- we suspect it's a bit more toxic than its UK counterpart. Ian continues to have no luck fishing, in the afternoon yesterday he managed to hook a fish but it got away just before he pulled it out the water. The fish was described as bright blue and about 50cm long for anyone who's interested. Ian remains hopeful and the fishing line was put out as soon as sleeping beauty arose this morning so we might have better news on the fishing front in tomorrow's blog. 
 
Ian and Andy persevere with the sextant to the amusement of Malcolm and me as they get increasingly frustrated at the calculations.
 
Claire