Sailing news:

 

Light winds today particularly after lunch but we have the spinnaker up and now maintaining 8 knots after a couple of slow hours.  Last night we had good breezes from 17-21 knots and have sailed a lot with Main, full yankee poled out and staysail which has worked well and we sailed very well through the night.  Noon to noon we made very close to 200 nm.  We seem to be doing well against Satori who have had spinnaker halyard problems.  Sarabi, Windflower and A Lady are Oyster 56 too and think we have gained a bit on Sarabi but it seems very close between the 4 boats of same origin and size.

 

Nicky says IT IS NOT A RACE, but we are sailing in the same direction!!  We have now completed 800nm and are inside 2000nm to go.  I gave the helm the instruction after lunch today: steer 262 deg T for 2020 nm! So we have just about done our initial Southing,  although St Lucia is still 7 degrees south of here.  We are now 21 deg north 27 degrees west, which means we are now about 2 hours time difference west of London or UTC as we nauticals call it.

 

Didn't see anybody overnight or during the day today until late pm.

 

Domestic news:

 

Active day. First I finished the latest Stieg Larsson, then we have spliced new ropes onto all the fenders, spliced little loops for the snap-shackles, sent Lara out to the end of the spinnaker pole to swap downhauls.  Lucky says his fur gets stuck in the threads of rope.

 

Mahi Mahi number 2 was caught, filleted, sliced and served as sashimi for lunch.  Sea-to-table in 25 mins! Washed down by a small glass of white Rioja.  We are catching the fish with a long line and a piece of bungy cord, and a pink lure at the other end.

 

Supper is Pasta Bolognese.  We have changed the watch system so we have different partners.  We are doing 3 hours on 6 hours off, with it being more casual during the day.  So you get 6 hours which allows you to get some sleep as we are now getting used to the rolling of the boat. 

 

Astro navigation: good day for taking sights, but we haven't yet plotted who is closest.  Amazing device which we seem to be getting to between 5 and 15nm of our position. We are cheating by using software program to do the maths for us rather than getting the tables out.