Day 8 - Trade Winds and Big Rollers

Shamal
Sun 23 Dec 2012 18:39
17.44.4N 37.56.4W
 
Everyone Fine! Weather warm with 2/8 cloud.
 
Olly celebrated the end to his birthday by catching a small tuna. He reluctantly threw it back as we are definately fished out now.
 
After yet another fairly calm night, the trade winds have started to pick up again this morning. They are forecast to increase over the next few days.
 
There was a big storm about 2,000 miles to the north of us over the past few days. We didn't see any sign of it until this morning when very large Atlantic rollers began to appear from the north. These are about 4m from crest to trough but are very long with about 15 seconds between crests. So we are sailing along nicely while slowly rising up one wave before slowly decending down the other side. A bit rocky at the tops but not too uncomfortable.
 
We had a glorious sunset last night. Olly took some pictures which we will distribute later.
 
Don is cook today. Have now realised that cooking is not one of his primary skills. Good to have him on-board though!
 
That's it for today.
 
Bye from all on Shamal