We are now just 25 miles north of the tropics, and the weather has got significantly warmer as we have headed south. Sunday’s night watch wear was fleecy leggings, long-sleeved top, mid-layer fleece and outer fleece. Top that with hat, neck-warmer and life-jacket and K was toasty warm. Last night, by contrast, it was just trousers, shirt - and life-jacket, of course â€�" and by 8am today it was back into shorts and t-shirts.

So, what news from team Barracuda?

On the domestic front, the fresh milk is finished; first loaf of bread baked; first ‘proper’ meal (chicken and mushroom risotto: previous nights were instant lasagne, eaten straight from the foil container, as no-one fancied cooking); alfalfa seeds set to sprout; washing up all done in sea water; one noxious exploding tortilla jettisoned; and we are having to do daily checks for duff fruit/veg in this warm weather. Apparently we should expect to lose around 10-15% of our fresh food.

On a technical front, one of our domestic batteries seems to be playing up, meaning we have to charge them a bit more often than we would like, so we will check that out today.

On navigation and weather: We motored for an hour and a half yesterday afternoon, but then managed to sail right through to the early morning, mostly in light winds between 8 and 13 kts from the north west, heading around 240 towards the western end of the Cape Verdes. Then at 0645, on Steve’s watch, the wind died completely, so it was jib rolled in, Windy P disconnected, engine on… half an hour later the wind rocketed to 20 kts, accompanied by rain, for all of 15 minutes. Our first tropical line squall! Still light airs right now, but we are sailing gently on (motoring only when we have to) and expect this to continue for a while. A bit disappointing to see very little sign of wind near us for the next few days, but our navigational choices are a) go due south to wind off Africa, but add 300-500 miles to our route; b) go west to the low pressure system above us, but risk running into strong headwinds or c) carry on, and hope for better, while we make our way to the Trades north of the Verdes.

Social: we are almost alone now, with the exception of one boat behind and another in front. The one in front has just called us up on the VHF for a confab about weather as they have the same conundrum as ourselves. They are a Dutch family with three kids, who were alongside us for a night in Las Palmas.

Nature and wildlife: Obviously we have caught no fish, but we did have a fantastic sighting of a ‘mean-looking big-un’ (Bibi’s description). About 5ft long, fast-moving, long nosed, white tummy, leaping vertically several feet clear out of the water a couple of boat-lengths behind us. It didn’t have a dolphin-look to it, so any suggestions welcomed (bearing in mind that we won’t see them until we get to St Lucia).

Distance run in the last 24 hours: 130 nautical miles Cumulative distance run since ARC start: 413 nautical miles