Monday 27/11/07  7pm MOTORING AGAIN.  We spent an hour or so trying to work out which lines in the Parasailor Wing were wrong.  Total brain damage.  We definitely found (we think) two strings crossed over but it’s very difficult to do with being able to spread the sail out completely.  As the light was fading we decided to try again tomorrow.  We were so busy we didn’t even greet the several dolphins frolicking around our bow.

Tuesday morning 28/11/07

The wind has gone NE and we’re getting a warm breeze from the Western Sahara. We are clearly in the NE trades. It’s a pleasant and rare event to have 15 knots or so of wind and no sea.  Very idyllic sailing. We’re back to shorts and  tee shirts.

We have discovered the engine driven 175amp alternator is not putting out a charge.  This means when we’re under power and the batteries need charging we have to run the generator as well. We will investigate with Princess to find out if it could have anything to do with the repair as a lot of battery wiring was removed for the fibre glass work.

The best news this morning is that the Spinnaker has been successfully untangled and is flying happily, giving us a steady 8 knots. Early this morning Steve and Sotiris checked last night’s attempt and in the light of the day it looked correct and in fact proved to be so.

Noon.  In spite of our rudeness yesterday they came back….an entire school nay a university of dolphins.  There were 15/20 either side of the bow wave, clearly the Dolphin Olympic Synchronized Swimming Team and all their alternates, leaping in 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s.  They were quite small, not much more than a meter in length, but I have never seen so many at once and they stayed for more than 45 minutes.  Looking in our sea life book I can’t find any that small, maybe they were actually teenagers.

14:00. Yesterday’s wind was down a bit so the last 24 hour run was 177 miles.  We have another 500 to go and should arrive sometime on Friday.