As we close the land the wind is fickle. We sailed all night but motoring once again this evening - at least it's finally calm! We are now on the Continental Shelf and depths shelved rapidly from 4000 metres to less than 200, currently 45 metres, and the water has turned from a beautiful deep blue to a rather murky looking green.

We had an eventful half-hour earlier. We were sailing lazily along enjoying the unaccustomed peace when the AIS started bleeping; a ship was approaching and would pass within a couple of miles of us. That's OK, but the AIS kept bleeping, I was just cursing it when Kit shouted and I heard a whooshing noise from down below, the fire extinguisher had gone off and the cabin was covered in white powder! It was like seeing it in negative! As if that wasn't enough a new noise was added to the bleeping - the fishing line was running out - we had a fish! Bad timing or what? Kit (looking rather white) came up from the cabin and grabbed the line but the end of the rod was broken and the fish was gone!

Order is now restored although the remnants of powder will take some time to remove; the safety pin must've shaken out of the extinguisher in all the rocking and rolling and when Kit's foot touched it - whoosh!.

We hope to arrive at the outer approach to Suriname River tomorrow evening and anchor a few miles up for the night. Next day we'll continue up river to Domburg.