Yesterday evening, March 5, we passed the halfway mark on our trip to Recife. It was celebrated with a cold beer whilst we motor-sailed with only a light breeze from the southeast. Our guess is an arrival in Recife around March 18.

I do not think that we are now too far off the route I had planned prior to departing - maybe we need to be about 100 nautical miles north of where we are at present. However, I mentioned the light winds. Each day I download weather files to see what the wind patterns and strengths are and, generally, the winds are light at the moment in the entire region. But conditions should start improving as we head northwest and we are able to sail more than motor.

We still have a good stock of food although the tuna has drastically reduced in quantity. Both Richard and Kyle enjoy their Sashimi and I leave them to it - I prefer my tuna cooked through and not raw. Richard still continues to concoct incredible meals and I must admit that we are eating like kings. Today he will also be baking French bread although I must admit that they will have to be quite short baguettes as the oven on board "In The Wind" is not one you would find in any bakery - it is rather on the small side!

We have had a few birds around the boat over the past few days - Storm Petrels, I think they are called. Otherwise we have seen very little sea life for the past week other than our daily dose of hundreds of thousands of flying fish. Yesterday we put out our fishing line again but had no takers. It is out again today but with a flat sea the fish seem uninterested. We are entering Wahoo and Dorado fishing territory and hopefully we catch a nice Dorado. Tuna on the menu gets a bit much after a while!

Generally, there is not too much to report - nothing broken on the boat other than Kyle's brand new filter coffee machine. No ships seen for a number of days, most likely due to us being well away from any major shipping lanes. And our HF radio email is still not working so this report goes out via Iridium Satellite telephone.

This evening we have our third time zone change which means our third "double happy hour" for the trip - two beers per person instead of one. We will now be one hour behind UTC/GMT or, three hours behind South African Standard Time (SAST). We have one more time zone change before we reach Recife.

May the wind Gods be with you - they certainly are not with us at present - until the next blog report, regards from Kyle, Richard and myself, John.