Early morning (0300) 2nd December - warm, slightly wet air, no moon, jet black horizon, very busy carpet of stars, 2 knots of wind….shooting stars everywhere. It feels a little like being wrapped in black velvet (...not that I ever have been). We are in the sort of tropical conditions that we expect for the rest of the trip now; except that we do not have the trade winds yet. The sunset was glorious last night and Ben made a very fine pasta having coped really well with the galley all day (aside from a minor burn on his arm from the oven door). I think that his incident , fortunately not serious, along with me constantly nagging everyone about the dangers of cooking at sea for the last month have finally started to sink in with all of them so I just have to get Tash through her day tomorrow and they will all have been through a duty cycle at least once before we get the full impact of the trades. I have 3 new proteges hooked on making bread - we are not short of fresh ways to overeat on this boat. Assuming that San Vincent has anything at all in their shops we should be able to re-stock on fresh veg and fruit which will make the rest of the passage a little healthier than it might otherwise have been. Once again, though, the ARC may have stripped the shelves bare on their way through so we might be left with slim pickings and expanding waist lines. It will be fascinating to see how far things have moved on in Cape Verdes with their recent adoption of the yachties. My pilot book is a bit out of date (we weren't planning on this particular detour) but is full of warnings about theft and lack of facilities. We do know that the last 3 years have seen some significant developments and I am confident that we will be pleasantly surprised - notwithstanding this I am still planning to put out the cockroach traps next to the mooring lines! We have managed to kill off all of the intruders from Mogan….sorry, I may have failed to mention this until it was under control….. and they never got inside the hull but we carried a few hardy stow-aways in the cockpit drains for a couple of days! All gone now. Everyone now vigilant (especially Tash, who really does not like the little fellas) so I am sure the hatches will be kept tight and I am expecting a little less foot dragging on the fruit and veg washing duties next time around. At least we have not had any sightings of rats!
