Thu 28 13:00 22:46.888N 19:43.912W Distance travelled 103 miles in 24h.

 

Our Skipper is in ‘cruising mode’ and it seems we have taken one of the most easterly routes south to avoid the rain further west.  We may have sailed an extra 20-30 miles to avoid the rain, but it means we have stayed dry!  Don’t want a warm muggy sauna like cabin before its unavoidable...

 

We were able to do some motor sailing through the night but we were mostly motoring in 3-5 knots of wind directly on the nose. The wind frees at sunrise and follows the sun round to be on the nose again at dark. We topped up the diesel from jerrycans on deck, 40 litres at 08:08 and she’s using 1.6 litres per hour at 2,000 rpm.

 

When the moon rose last night it was very tropical looking, like a huge banana on its back, much bigger than you would expect, blush pink to start with and gradually turning gentle yellow as it rose.

 

We’ve a small dark, white rumped bird following us for the past 2 days which appears and disappears through the day. We saw a large grouping mix of dolphins and porpoises.  Most were up to a mile away and jumping frequently but quite a large number came over to the boat and several were displaying by leaping out of the water and turning to fall back down full on their sides or backs making very large splashes.

 

Sightings: a large fishing fleet on the horizon at night; dolphins, porpoises and bird.  Nothing much else but expanses of sky, clouds and sea.