Minniethemoocher
Tue 27 Nov 2007 12:19
Position 1200 UTC
25 54N
22 18W

Grey skies and lead seas. We are now clear of the islands and have a proper Atlantic long rolling swell instead of the confused seas we had yesterday. The wind dropped yesterday afternoon to about 12 knots but by evening we had found a large bank of cloud with 18 knots under it. The wind has veered so this morning we hoisted the #2 AP (all purpose) spinnaker to take a deeper angle. There is rain coming in which will probably give us an extra 10 knots so we have taken the spinnaker down and reset the jibtop.

Our wind instruments are playing up giving us unreliable data which is a real problem as not everybody is able to helm by the feel of the boat and extra demands are being put on those that can, leading to fatigue.

We had two visits from porpoises last night, the second of which was quite spectacular. It was a large school (or pod?) and we had about 8 swimming under the bow with others either side of the boat. We picked up a wave an added a couple of knots of boatspeed. The effect on the porpoises was electric. They responded with leaps out of the water all around us!

Yesterdays treat was licorice allsorts and biltong (dried beef) - lekker.