16:51.03N 27:09.10W

Tuesday 21^st Dec

Spent the morning getting Serafina ready for the crossing and after a light lunch ashore with Chris and Steve from Scott-Free, we both slipped our lines around 4.00pm and headed out of the harbour and into the Atlantic Ocean.

The wind was blowing between 20 and nearly 30 knots and the sea was quite uncomfortable at first, but heavily reefed to start with, we still made very good progress south from Sao Vincente Island and then turned west for the Caribbean. Two other yachts followed a little way behind and we know that there are several others ahead of us that left in the morning.

After dark the wind dropped briefly whilst we were in the lee of the last of the Cape Verde Islands and then returned with all the power of earlier. This precipitated our first crisis but fortunately Sarah spotted it just in time. One of the zips holding the bimini onto its frame had broken open and we were about to lose the canvas in the strong wind. She grabbed the cover and called to wake me and get me up on deck to help. Together we tacked the yacht onto an easier ride in the waves and effectively hove to so we could get the bimini removed from its frame. I wish I could say that this was a straightforward and easy exercise but even with all the deck lights blazing and the boat fairly still in the confused sea, it still all got a little exciting!

However we eventually got the bimini off the frame and tied the frame itself up safely before tacking back onto our original course and resumed sailing.

The wind continued to gust up to 30 knots all night, but as we were on a broad reach and heavily reefed still, we were making between 6 and 8 knots hour after hour. The seas are anything but pleasant and very confused which makes for a very uncomfortable ride and just for good measure, every so often a rogue wave hits the hull side-on and fills the cockpit with spray and we discovered in the morning that one had also delivered an unsuspecting flying fish on to the deck – a 6” specimum had arrived, and it was very interesting to check out the wings.