15:28.8N 45:08.5W

Tuesday 28^th & Wednesday 29^th Dec

Well Tuesday turned out to be a pretty good day for us particularly once we had set our downwind sails and poles. (Simbo Rig)

Serafina became very much more stable (well, by comparison to earlier) and the autohelm had less to do, but when the squalls hit us, the fireworks really began.

In one burst of 35 knots of wind we found ourselves surfing at 11.5 knots through the water –our speed over the ground was 13.2 knots!

The wind maintained a steady 20 knots all day and once the succession of rain and wind squalls had finished around midday, we had a great few hours flying along at speeds of between 8 and 9 knots.

S-F on the other hand had suffered a crisis by way of a serious bit of gear failure. They also use two poles to hold out their foresails, but they have very long Aluminium ones, one of which is actually a telescopic whisker pole, or rather it was! In a 40 knot squall, something went wrong and suddenly this thinner pole was bent at 90 degrees. The seas were far too rough to risk going on the foredeck to recover the situation, but they were able to head up onto a broad reach and leave the broken pole in place until mid-afternoon when they got it down. This held them back and so by the end of the day we were back in touch with them both on the AIS and VHF radio.

AS dusk fell we found ourselves being driven too far south and the lighter winds were causing the downwind sails to slap and crack as they emptied and refilled as the boat rolled in the still quite heavy swell, which puts a huge strain on the rig and our nerves, so we put the twins away and came up onto a broad reach and sailed through the night with just the main held out with a preventer. (Sorry to those who find these bits a bit technical!) It was at about 10.00pm that we passed the half-way mark with just over 1000 miles covered and I thought about the fact that the nearest land was so far away, but then a bit of investigation showed that Brazil was just 850 miles away.

We both had much better nights off watch and were feeling a good deal more relaxed when dawn broke to reveal a beautiful clear blue sky and very hot sun. The wind stayed around 15 knots all day and as a direct result the seas dampened down and the swell became rather less intimidating. In fact Sarah declared that today would be OK for a spot of fishing as we could do with some nice fresh fish. I should explain that whilst one can fish in most conditions and also possibly land and gut the catch in big seas, the factor that determines if I am allowed to fish or not is whether the back deck is stable enough for Sarah to be able to sit/squat and fillet and skin anything we might catch.

So around 11.00am I put out the lure and (I am really sorry Robert F about this...) just 15 minutes later we heard the reel scream and the rod bowed under the weight of another strike. We had just re-rigged and set the twins and were sailing at around 6 knots downwind again which was a pain as we now had to slow down to bring in and play the fish. So we rolled the headsails away and landed a very nice Mahi Mahi that was just shy of 3 kg. After I had gutted it, Sarah performed her magic, filleting the flesh from the backbone and then removing the skin from each side in one go. A career in the fish market beckons...!

Lunch then was some of this fabulous tasting fish and there is plenty in the fridge now to last for  number of days, so once again my sporting interest has lasted just a quarter of an hour and we have been at sea for more than a week.

The rest of the day sort of drifted past as we made 5 knots all afternoon under the twin headsails, but again the lack of wind caused the sails to flop around quite a bit. We have had a bit of a thought about this and plan to try some changes on Thursday when we next set that rig up. We took the opportunity to have showers off the back of the boat and it is rather unnerving standing there as the big waves tower over you. I have tried repeatedly to capture this effect on camera, but somehow it never looks quite as dramatic or daunting.

Wednesday night passed without mishap but the wind remained vaguely from the east and the strength constantly varied between 8 and 18 knots, so with these changes in the wind direction we found ourselves constantly having to silence the wind shift alarm! The good news was that the sea has moderated and we are now left with the long even rollers and less of the nasty short stuff in between.

I thought I should mention the moral dilemma I face when watching for whales. Sarah has issued standing instructions for me to keep a constant vigil for these wonderful creatures, but by their very nature this presents a problem for me. Mostly you only get to see one breach as it dives for the depths and so in the lucky event one gets to see this, calling Sarah to see is fraught with issues. The event is usually swift and dramatic and almost certainly by the time she has rushed up to see, she will have missed it.  Now she will be doubly upset because I will have witnessed it and she still has not, so would it not be best to say nothing and just enjoy the spectacle and not upset her? In the event my first sighting on this trip of a breaching hump back whale was so dramatic that I instantly and quite involuntarily shouted a very loud ‘Wow, that is incredible’ and the secret was out. Fortunately Sarah was on deck at this moment and the whale obligingly breached two more times before diving so she saw it as well.