Four fish actually. Although not exactly caught. More head butted by 13 tonnes of Island Packet as the poor wee flying fish panicked and flew straight on deck rather than safety.

We have lost a lure. Whatever it was would have made a decent catch as it chewed right through our wire trace. We are trying a bright pink plastic squid today but nothing so far.

Typical trade wind night and days. Billions of stars and phosphoresence at night and blue skies and blazing sun all day. Its noticeably warmer today so the 500 miles farther south are having an impact; mostly from an excess of sun tan cream......steering wheel slipping though your hands and winch handles you can hardly get a grip of and odd tasting cookies.

Genaker is flying just now with full main and genoa goose-winged so we're making good speed in 16-18 knots of wind...just above our self imposed take it down threshold. With a few more hands on deck I'm sure we can get it down if it blows up anymore. The Monitor is doing the steering so I'm quite pleased with the set up.

The fleet is spread out over about 120 miles. Having not seen another ARC+ boat since nightfall on the first day it will be good to see some lights at night as the fleet converges on Cape Verde. We should have jus another two or maybe three nights at sea. As its dark from 6pm to 7am there's a good chance we will arrive in the dark, tempting us to break our rule of not entering a new, unknown harbour in the dark. We may just cross the finish line the go offshore and heave to until daylight. That's an issue for later. Meanwhile, its coffee and biscuits time so that's yer lot for today!