We should be arriving in Barbados late tomorrow afternoon (touch wood) after 4 weeks at sea to the day from St Helena- hurrah! We will have sailed around 5,350 nautical miles since leaving Cape Town on 5 January, with just a few days in St Helena and only 42.2 engine hours, so we are feeling quite proud of ourselves. Matilda has behaved beautifully with no real issues despite sometimes trying circumstances. Conditions over the past 48 hours have been superb so we are back in love with sailing, but still can't wait to get there. Its looking good that we will have a place in Barbados's only marina (that usually only takes superyachts - clearly times are hard everywhere).

Life on board has been very routine, the highlight of the days being mealtimes where we have eaten very well, if rather unorthodox at times, trying to use up all the provisions. For example, lunch today was fried new potatoes in a Thai red curry sauce, topped by an omelette filled with whole button mushrooms and blue cheese sauce. Quite the experiment, but it turned out to be delicious and filling.

The passage has not been without its excitement. Since hearing of Peat Smoke's encounter with an unlit 'fishing' boat in the middle of the night, that then attempted to board them, we have been a bit neurotic on the night watch, intently scanning the radar. Although we have probably been far out enough not to be in any real danger of similar encounters, we have come across many (lit) fishing boats (without AIS) and one night one did look to be heading directly for us. I wont say we got in a panic, but when it got within a mile of us we had spotlights, flares (as weapons), boat hooks and other means of repelling boarders at the ready before the poor skipper replied to our calls on the radio; he was actually concerned about our intentions (sailing in choppy seas we do lurch around a bit) and then very kindly went well out of his way to give us a wide berth. Just goes to show...

Our next blog will probably be from Barbados, which we are inordinately excited about getting to. It's incredible to think that since leaving Cape Town we have pretty much completed a 1/4 global circumnavigation. It's a long time to spend in a small space, so we'll be very happy to get back to dry land for a change!