Position: 21:15.508N 20:41.487W

November 26^th – Day 4

Another glorious day weather wise – but this time we had wind! The cruising chute went up about 8 this morning and is still up as we speak – we are going to be terribly brave and leave it up all night. Our current speed over the ground is 7knts – not bad for 8 knts of wind. Last night was pretty calm, so we motored again all night, Dave decided we needed to motor out of the low and it seems to have paid off.

We have now covered 470 miles, and in many ways it is the easiest sailing we have done so far – definitely a much better trip that the two overnight journeys we had getting down here, and I haven’t felt worried or scared at all – I guess the fact that there is land relatively close by and we could still divert to the Cape Verdes still provides a semblance of reassurance – but if I let my mind consider being a thousand miles in the middle of an ocean – I still feel a sense of almost claustrophobia. At the moment we are still heading south – waiting for the trade winds to start so we can turn right (west) and start the journey across. All the arc boats we are sailings with have taken slightly different tactics – with varying degrees of success. Sophistikate headed immediately east so they are much closer to the coast of Africa than we are – as a consequence they have had much more wind and have not had to use their engine for more than 5 hours. Mikado headed west – and they have sat right in the middle of the low for the last few, they are behind us – despite the fact that they are a light racing boat and should be well in front by now – I’m sure they will zoom past us as soon as we turn west. But as you can imagine – alot of radio time is spent discussing tactics and where the wind is.

In terms of crew well being – we are all fine, Dave is still not great, he generally improves during the day but goes down hill again at night – he was in bed by 6 tonight so he can get up and do his watch at 11. Last night he felt fine so didn’t wake anyone else until 3. Our watch system is working fine – I almost got full nights sleep last night – and in my own bed. That was actually quite a milestone – as I usually just lie down in the cockpit or the salon, but I finished at 11 and went to bed, almost as normal! Dave did 11 – 3 then Dave & Sam did 3 – 8, it was great. Unfortunately Indy has decided to ‘join’ me on my watch (7-11) so it’s not as peaceful as you might imagine!   The kids are all getting on remarkably well,