Tuesday 4th December 2012 14:09.52N 042:37.21W

 

We have enjoyed some excellent sailing in the past couple of days with steady winds taking us closer to our destination at reasonable speeds.  We have also experienced frustrating periods when the wind just dies for a few hours and we are left wallowing in the waves with barely steerage way. 

 

The nights have been particularly pleasant as the moon lays out a silver trail towards our destination.  Each day the moon rises later, so that we now have several hours of complete darkness at the start of the nights, making us appreciate even more the moonlight’s arrival.  The evenings also bring denser cloud and occasional rain, but apart from one night when we experienced a brief period of 30 knots of wind, no serious squalls.

 

Flying fish are our only regular creature sightings, scattering in squadrons from the boat’s approach. We have even starting collecting them from the deck in the morning and freezing them for a later meal.  The Mahi Mahi count is up to 8, and we are getting used to grilling or currying them. All except Rossi who has been enthusiastically catching them but doesn’t like to eat fish!  Sunday saw the skipper land the largest one so far (his only one), but we were surprised to see that something had taken a small bite out of its back.  The processing of the fish has improved since we decided to use the deck wash hose for cleaning up instead of dangling buckets in the sea – and losing two buckets!

 

We continue heading towards Barbados in the hope that we may have time to visit the island before our planned stop in Grenada.