We have now crossed the tropic of Cancer, and continue to turn more towards the west. If we turn too early however, we may miss our ride on the trade winds. Some of the fleet have already made their turn, and if we do not find stronger winds further south as we expect, then they have made the right choice. It's simply a judgement call of distance versus speed.

Last night we passed the Endeavour Seamount, some 300 miles off the west coast of Mauritania. This is a submerged mountain over 3,500 metres high, with just 164 metres of water above it. By Atlantic standards that's shallow, and shallow water means rough seas, so we made sure to pass around rather than over.

We woke to a splendid sun rise after a good night's sailing, having cleared 82 miles in darkness. At day break we were lying 16th out of 168 boats in terms of distance still to run to St Lucia. Will our luck hold? Maybe not as we now have light winds and the newer, lighter boats will have the advantage. We have tried every possible sail combination to find speed. After all that hard work we ended up where we started, at 5 knots. Nothing ventured .... We need a strong wind to play L'Isme's advantage.

This has been our first hot, blue skies day. We are down to our skimpies and throwing buckets of sea water over our heads. It's going to get still hotter. One downside is that some of our fresh fruit is going off, particularly bananas and satsumas. We are gorging ourselves rather than chucking it.

We have not sighted another boat for 24 hours. We are truly on our own now. After yesterday’s close miss, hopes for fresh fish are high. We have assembled our finest lures and are on the hunt.

Stop press: we have just been visited by another school of dolphins at 19:00. Fantastic.