04:00N 81:03W

 

The God of Wind is really looking after us – so far.  We keep waiting for the wind to die but it just keeps on blowing and Bandit continues to race along at 6-7knots, helped by a favourable current.   We certainly didn’t expect to still have wind, and even weather guru Bob McDavitt said there would be little, but we are not complaining!  When David came off watch at 2am the wind had lightened to about 7 knots and we thought it was the start of the lull but by 4am it had kicked in again.  As I write this at midday it’s back up to 14knots – fantastic!  

 

We did 180miles in our first 24 hours at sea and it looks like we may even get close to that in our second 24 – making the Galapagos get closer by the minute but we still have the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone to deal with – an area near the equator of no wind, squalls and thunder and lightning.

 

Yesterday rolled on by in a bit of a blur – the second day/night at sea is always the worst for tiredness so we did little other than sit around and read, sleep and listen to music...oh, and just on sunset...catch a good sized yellow fin tuna.  So for the second night running we had oily fish for dinner.

 

Twice a day we listen in to the “Mozzie”net and hear the progress of the five Australian boats we left Las Perlas with as well as those closer to the Galapagos. Surprisingly we’d put 60 miles on two of the boats we left with (Southern Cross and Shakti) – they hit a light patch and while Bandit was romping along at 7 knots they were struggling to do 4.  Moana Roa, who left a couple of hours after us are about 40 miles behind us and Remi Di, the largest in the fleet, overtook us in the night.  We could see their light most of the night but by dawn they had disappeared.  A 50ft plus catamaran, they average much faster speeds than us so we were surprised we held them off for so long.

 

Thanks to those who have emailed us – the highlight of our day is receiving mail so please, keep them coming!  Remember, we are completely out of touch so have no idea what’s happening in the world – any info much appreciated.  yachtbandit {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com (no attachments).