Off the coast of Mauritania, and weatherwise we are having a slightly frustrating time right now. Up to about midnight we were having to motor into a light headwind, but then we had enough of a shift and increase to sail, albeit slowly, west-south-west for a few hours. Then the winds got increasingly flukey �" rising, falling, backing, veering �" Mr Windy P (self steering) got very confused, had enough of it and decided to heave to just before dawn, pointing east.

The latest forecast shows another big low pressure system coming across from the north west, bringing strong headwinds with it, so we have been ghosting along southwestwards of the system to avoid it, aiming at areas where there should be more favourable winds towards the Cape Verdes �" some 250 miles away. Our problem is that in these light conditions we tack through about 110 true, so with the wind on the nose we are pushed either slightly east of south, or slightly north of west, so it is just hard to make much useful progress.

On the plus side, there was a glorious sunrise this morning, with the sun coming flaring up through huge black rain showers �" very dramatic. We have just one neighbouring yacht near us now and we have been exchanging weather thoughts by VHF. And we did catch a yellow tailed snapper yesterday, but put it back, as too small to keep. In these calm conditions, supper last night was sausages, potatoes and garlicky courgettes at the cockpit table, after a rousing game of Dobble. Just a shame that we are a dry ship. Lastly, crew have been reporting very good sleep in their off-watches.

Doing our daily produce check this morning we discovered six bananas that had gone from ‘just right’ to ‘only fit for cakes’ overnight. This coincided with the discovery that we hadn’t really catered for enough butter for cake-baking, so there is now a huge banana bran loaf in the oven, with the crew looking forward to afternoon tea. All this is somewhat compromised by the fact that K managed to turn off the oven 15 minutes in.

We refuelled the main tank today, transferring some fuel that we have in jerry cans on the deck into the main tank. We brought a lot of diesel, knowing the winds were light on this stretch of the route. We just need to be sure we have the right amount left when we get to the Cape Verde Islands and head right with the Trade Winds - which of course will be there, he says optimistically - ready to shoot us west. We have access to weather data here on board, but it is limited and slow over a sat-phone which has broadband speed like you used to have at home in the early days of internet. So G’s brother Angus has helpfully done some more detailed research online, and texted us the news that the Trades are expected at the Cape Verde Islands by around Sunday, which is when we hope to get down north-west of the islands.

Distance run in the last 24 hours: 103 nautical miles Cumulative distance run since ARC start: 516 nautical miles