Well, we certainly have had a varied first six days at sea. We started off with the first few days with no wind at all, something that rarely happens in the south Atlantic in the middle of winter. Then we had a day of about 15 knots out of the south-southwest, which later changes to 30 to 35 knots out of the southeast. Then the winds dropped for about 12 hours and we are again with 25 knots out of the south-southeast. Due to the winds, we have been having some quite good noon to noon runs.

Yesterday, Saturday 23 July, we crossed the Valdiva banks, a ridge of undersea mountains that runs from the African continent out and down the centre of the Atlantic. Fortunately, we crossed during a period of relative calm and encountered no oversized swell. This can be an area of very large seas if you do not cross in the right place.

A couple of days out of Cape Town I received an email from the TUI office in Cape Town, informing me that our destination had changed from Tortola to Fort Lauderdale. This is no problem, except they want the boat there by 31 August, which means that we have to really push our daily runs to the limit to be able to make the destination by the given time. There is another problem in that Byron, my 1st Mate, was only issued a US C1 visa by the US Consulate in Cape Town. We need to verify if he can enter the US by boat on that visa and depart by another means of transport.

Due to the need to keep moving as fast as possible, we are going to have to forfeit our planned stop at the island of St Helena and rather stop in Fortaleza, Brazil, to top up our fuel and water tanks. As we progress across the Atlantic towards the northern coast of South America, we will experience days of little or no wind and have to burn a lot more diesel to keep us moving to be able to make the destination on time. More about this in a future blog posting.

We have had two fishing lines out for a couple of days and have had a couple of strikes, but no fish landed. Maybe the sea state has been too rough for fish to feel obliges to sample the delicate flavour of our plastic squid lures. Once things have settled a bit, I am sure a nice Dorado or two will do the honours!

Yesterday we celebrated Byron's birthday - he turned 25. Unfortunately, with no beer or alcohol on board, it was celebrated with a good cup of hot chocolate. We will buy him a round at some port to complete the celebration. We do have a bottle of sparkling wine on board, but that has to be reserved for our equator crossing, which is still a few weeks away.

So, you all have the news from aboard the good ship Moorings A5012. Until the next blog post, regards from the three of us - Byron, Wihan and myself, John.