17:48.5N 027:57.2W

Monday 29^th November

Sorry again for the lack of a blog - we will try to do better!

As you might of read on Tranq's we are close hauled, sailing as close to the wind as we can. At the moment that means going due west, waiting for a window in weather so we can head further south in search of this mythical thing called a Trade Wind. Convinced right now that this is just a rumour put about to encourage people to try sailing across oceans - the fools!

Everyone getting used to living in a world that is at an angle and things don't stay where they're put. Everyone has now worked out which bit of the cockpit has the chance of getting the spray from the odd wave, but as yet everyone has managed to 'duck and cover' so all reading material is still in a fit state to be read. Haven't seen much of the sun in the last 2 days, but temperature is on the rise and even the night watches are now t-shirt and shorts. Hope the snow isn't causing the usual chaos back in the UK. I'll hand over to our resident blogger Tony, love to all at home, Dan.

It’d 0930 on the morning of Monday 29^th November and it is 30+ degrees and feels like 95% humidity. With the heat and the Atlantic rollers we’re all cat-napping rather than getting solid sleep. Only 3 days since a shower but feels like a lifetime. A “Bad Hair Day” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

At least we have seen some more wildlife. Flying fish seem to be very common. Suddenly, 20 or 30 will appear out of the waves and “fly” 50 yards down wind. Veer impressive but not sure I can really see the point!  We also saw a school of about 10 Pilot Whales yesterday morning. They were much larger than dolphins and had very distinctive dorsal fins. Dan said we were lucky to miss them as they were probably asleep on auto-pilot (or I guess auto-whale) and it’s not unknown for boats accidentally to hit them.

Looks like our landfall at SL will be some (5 to 8?) days later than “normal” due to the unfavourable winds. We can now all see why we took so much extra food and water on board. Even the 26 tins of mushrooms in brine might eventually look good enough to eat!

And now, back to the sauna that is PhoebeB............Tony