Day 9 Mileage 131 miles – 17 hours motoring – total is 1242 (10.45GMT Friday) (yesterday’s should have been 1111)

Oh Dear

You will see from the figures above that we are in a large area of low wind. We had hoped that motoring through the night might have got us into a better position but no. It seems that this area extends for some way and that it might be Tuesday or Wednesday when we might get winds over 15 kts. We are currently going south-west to attempt to ameliorate this position. Of course we are using diesel and can only do this for so long; we may have to sit it out – who knows? So much for plans.

Apart from being windless it is very hot and we talk more about ice than beer. Last night some migrating egrets took a fancy to us – two hitched a ride all night, they looked very hungry and tired. We managed to persuade them to join a large tanker that passed. The changing diet - last night we had sweet and sour chicken from a tin (large) and rice from a bag. Tonight who knows?

This morning we used the cruising chute in a vain attempt to get some speed, although we attained 3.2 kts at one instant we only averaged 2 kts in about 4 or 5 kts of wind.

A not very good picture of the chute.

We heard the phone “ping” at noon so you should have a noon fix at last.

Hope that there is some good news soon to tell yoy

Roger