Oh boy what happened to the trade winds?? After the first week of hunting them south of the Canaries it looked like they had finally moved in for good but 3 days ago the weather has started playing havoc with our progress again - everything from contrary winds to totally becalmed and nothing of that nice ENE at 20kn from behind... Our ETA in Antigua has now slipped to Wed, 12DEC which in face of current weather forecasts might still prove a challenge. On top of that we had to dismount our windvane self steering yesterday morning after one of the mounting brackets showed signs of a stress fracture after continues pounding in sometimes quite heavy seas (and threatened to penetrate the hull if the whole thing came lose...). And we had to remedy some engine trouble after those same heavy seas apparently caused some siphoning of sea water into the engine oil. We got that (hopefully) fixed this morning and now at least have full power generating capability back (the tow generator doesn't keep up with consumption in the lighter winds we're currently experiencing). Anyway - this morning looked like a much brighter day after the engine job was done and after everyone on board finally has had a good night of sleep on a becalmed boat (bad for progress but good for crew morale...). Otherwise all is well aboard and if we catch some tuna for tonight we will be a very happy ship again! Stay tuned for further updates...