15:48.77N 26:05.39W

At about 1400 we motored out of Porto Grande and headed out into the channel between the islands where we popped the Parasailor and were making a respectable 7 kts downwind. This is the life- we thought. Sailing along, 7 kts, light swells, sunny day, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Fast forward 3 hours.....

The wind has died and what wind there is,  is pushing us west instead of south and the sea is very confused, not large, but confused. We are making a very slow 2.5 to 3 kts down towards our jump off for the ITCZ at around 10 N 28 W. The track looks like a drunken sailor staggering too far to the west but not to worry, as the trade winds should re-establish themselves sometime in the next day or so.

Differently from our other passages, this time there were other 4 or 5 yachts heading either to Central America or to Brazil, so there was some radio chatter overnight. Goodbyes, wishes of good luck, exchanges of weather forecasts and so on.

So far so good.

PS: To our 2 mums, we’ll try and send an update every day, but if we don’t, don’t panic, it’s just that some days we can’t seem to get a satellite data connexion J Love...