Better progress. We are still sailing in quite light winds mainly from ahead but with smoother seas it is possible to sail closer to the wind and we have covered some good miles over the last few days.

We will be crossing the River Plate tonight and tomorrow but with Piriapolis laying directly upwind of the forecast breeze it will be a slow crossing.

All day yesterday there was a brownish tinge on the North Western horizon caused by the dust and pollution in air from the land, probably mainly dust from the Pampa.

The temperature on deck yesterday evening was close to 20 degrees Centigrade and we sat on deck with after dinner coffee and watched a beautiful synchronised sunset and moonrise.

As we shook out a reef about 1am this morning at a change of watch I shone my headlamp up the rig to check the halyard tension and was surprised to see that the whole rig was covered in shimmering streamers of what looked like spider silk. I assume that we had run through a cloud of some kind on inset that was traveling on silken parachutes. Whatever the stuff is it's pretty tenacious as the shrouds are still flying lots of thin silver streamers this morning.