Day 3

Sun and pretty steady winds of 18-20k from the SE all day so bobbing along quite nicely goose winged on starboard gybe. No dramas, so spent the day dozing and reading. The gribs suggested we needed to gybe just before dark to keep west of a light patch coming up ahead. After gybing, the wind went light and swung east under a rain shower which forced us to sail due west for a couple of hours with much frustration. Anyway, back on course now though we are in a dying breeze. We have less that 170nm to go, so only need to average 5k to get there before dark Wednesday – should manage that!

It’s getting very hot now, both day and night. When we thought about it, we realised that we are between the southern hemisphere summer solstice and equinox, and that the sun is almost directly overhead at midday. In fact we will be moving north at similar speed to the sun right through to the northern summer solstice in June – it’s going to be a long hot summer (at least until we get back to the UK!)

Date and time:  9^th Feb 2016; 0700 GMT

24 hours distance:   170nm

Position:  S09:57:039 W012:27:673