The wind has dropped slightly over the last 24 hours, meaning that yesterday's run was only 115 miles.  We have not motored at all, but at times during the night watches the speed was down to 3.5 knots.  There are still a few banks of black cloud around at night looking like they have the potential for squalls - Geoff had another rain shower during his watch (good thing he has his new coat!)  This was heralded by a veer in the wind, which gave us cause to gybe.  We were glad that we had taken the spinnaker down at dusk.

 

The biggest excitement of today has been the catch of two superb fish, simultaneously.  Charlie reeled one in and Geoff reeled in the other.  They were both wahoo, each a metre long with beautiful tiger stripe markings:

 

 

We are looking forward to eating the fish that we have kept, which will be our dinner tonight.  It is the most delicious, delicate flavoured fish.  We decided that we would not be able to eat both, so we put one fish back into the sea.  Unfortunately it died while we were releasing it from the hook, and we had to console ourselves that it has at least gone back into the marine food chain.  While we are on the subject, the fish we have gutted had a stomach full of tiny fish - obviously its last supper.

 

Currently the conditions are very comfortable - a barely noticeable roll and speed over the ground of 5.5 knots, under full mainsail and poled out goosewinged genoa.  The sky is light blue with a very fine dusting of cloud.  There is sparkling sea as far as the eye can see - the only change of scene was a ship which passed us a couple of hours ago. 

 

We are into a good routine on board and everyone seems happy.  Last night the children were a bit stir crazy but they calmed down at bedtime and crashed out until this morning.  They don't seem to be disturbed by the noise we make when gybing or reefing.  Pip has been enjoying practising her joined-up handwriting and Alice has been writing up their log book.

 

Charlie has been tuning in the SSB radio and managed to get a weak signal of the BBC World Service.  Tomorrow morning we will try to tune into a radio net run by our friends.  We are very keen to hear how Tamarisk and Regina are getting on with their Atlantic Crossing to the Azores.