Lanzarote to Mindelo. Day 5.

Noon GMT report.

We had some good sailing yesterday afternoon, although ominous cloud was building. Speed was good, swell was OK and the old grib file that we have was proving pretty good. I went off watch at 2000 leaving the mate in charge. Not sleeping too well, I could sense the swell increasing and every now and then Stargazer took a wave beam on, knocking me from one side of the cabin to the other, clearly the wind was building but I was too tired to go and look, knowing that the mate had it all in hand. Then at 2230, half an hour before the end of my off-watch the mate decided enough was enough and we needed to reef. She was trying to wait until 2300 which is our watch change over as we’d both be on deck, but she was absolutely correct, we needed that reef!

So, on we rolled throughout the night with two reefs in the poled out genoa and rolling along on a pretty boisterous ocean. Come the morning, things were little better and it’s only now that we have shaken the reef out, although the seas still remain a little higher than we’d expected. There’s also a lot of cloud coming in and it’s not that warm (remember we are 22 North!!). Last night was very cold again – so if anyone can tell me why we use the term global warming, please let me know…

We’re still having comms problems and have very few satellite minutes left, but we’re going to try for another grib now, so forgive the short blog today (although we still have no idea if they are actually sent anyway).

It’s too early to give an eta for Mindelo, but we’re now into the tropics and over half way (I wish someone would tell the weather that).

For now, the mate wants to bring her small bottle of fizz out to celebrate crossing the tropic of Cancer. Who am I to argue…

Andy & Jo