26:12.059N 17:27.257W
Thursday 19th November
We had an uncomfortable night last night. The Atlantic sea is as
confused as the Mediterranean. There are big swells and because we are sailing
downwind the boat rolls from side to side. It seems to be so much worse of a
night time but I think it's because you can't see the waves coming to brace
yourself. Some of us aren't happy with this motion but unfortunately there
isn't much we can do about it. I think Amy wanted to jump ship as we sailed
passed Gran Canaria. She was trying to figure out if she would make it swimming
to shore!
We believe the trade winds have kicked in because we've got good winds pushing
us along. But also apparently small, isolated cumuli clouds looking like the
out pourings of a steam train are meant to be sure signs of the Trades and
we're surrounded by them.
We've been experimenting with different sail systems but at the moment we are
flying the genoa poled out to port and the head sail poled out to starboard. It
seems to be working well and we're sailing along at 8-9 knots. Our maximum
speed so far is 10.2 kts and of course we're trying to beat it, so far today
we've had 10 kts.
Early evening we saw a yacht on the horizon and with AIS we were able to
identify it as a 97ft yacht called Varsovie that was heading for Cape Verde.
They passed very close to our stern and we all exchanged a wave.
We're settling in to our watches nicely. We've decided to do 4 hrs on 4 hrs
off. Paul H and Amy are together and me and Paul B are together. We work it so
that in the four hours we're on watch one of us sleeps for the first 2 hours
and then the other for the next to. We've decided to do it like this because
when we start experiencing squalls we'll need two people on deck to bring the
sails in. It seems to be working well.
