We are still making very slow progress on a North West course towards the coast of Brazil, where we head North toward the Caribbean. The winds are blowing between 10 and 16 knots. Whenever we see the wind speed increasing above 13 knots we raise the spinnaker which saves some diesel. We are equidistant between 2 other boats on delivery from the same boatyard. The one is 600 Nm ahead of us and the other 600 Nm behind. The boat up ahead has reported that they have come into some good winds off the Brazilian coast. We are hoping that it will last till we get there in about 4 days time.

We have spotted quite a bit of wildlife out here with the dolphins being the most exciting for me. Other nice ones are the birds; shearwater, booby, storm petrel and fairy terns have been spotted over the last 2 days. Shaheda's favourite is still the flying fish. She sits at the helm, which is elevated, during her watches and never seems to tire of watching these amazing and amusing fish. Some of them are obvious better flyers than others, those who have their fishing licence but not there pilot licence make pathetic attempts at taking off only to crash head first into the water again. This distraction has seemed to help Shaheda with the seasickness as she seems to have overcome the dreaded one, at least for now.

As we make progress to the West we move further from the International Dateline, I still like to call it the Greenwich Meridian and GMT despite the protestations of a few spoilers who want us to refer to it as the Universal Time Co-ordinate or UTC. Anyway the consequence of this is that we are loosing time on those to the East of us and we are now 2 hours behind GMT and 4 hours behind our hometown, Cape Town. We have a very different issue with the move toward the Equator as we head North and that is one of humidity. Despite the rain squalls we've had as well as the cloudy weather it is still depressingly hot. I feel sweaty, clammy and uncomfortable all the time.

Our fresh water storage capacity is obviously limited and we have an allocation of approximately 5 litres of water per person per day, that is for drinking, cooking, washing up and yes the occasional wash. Showering at any given time is not an option, and you really just have to make do with washing down the vital bits, a bit like marking your self with the sign of the cross if you know what I mean, say no more! Despite being a very water conscious person in general, I still have to question myself everytime I touch the tap, "Do you really have to rinse that cup now can't it wait till there is a full load to wash up" and so on. After diner we throw a bucket overboard and pull up some sea water. This is used to give the pots and plates a scrub down and to remove the worst of the residue after which we rinse it with water. With all the little savings we make we get an allocated shower day once in 2 weeks. Terry and I took ours on the day we caught the dorado, crawling into your bunk with the fish pong would be most unpleasant. Shaheda is saving her's for Saturday as it is her off day and she wants to do her hair at the same time.

John shared his bread baking recipe with us yesterday and as it was Terry's day off he took the opportunity to bake 2 loaves one being a cheese loaf. Unfortunately for Terry he went to sleep before the bread came out of the oven. I always say there are only 2 types of people in the world, the quick and the hungry. Well we did not leave Terry quite hungry but we sampled his bread before he did, it was delicious. The night before Terry made his own version of fish florentine, the reason I say his own version is that the frozen spinach required for this dish had vanished! Terry replaced it with something else green, canned peas which we had on board. Last night Shaheda and I made some curry, with limited ingredients we did a great job as everyone including myself thought the food was good. However Terry who's constitution is not used to this fare had a few sweat beads on his forehead and later said that his tummy was somewhat "traumatised", his words. (Waleed remember the vindictive vindaloo:-). A cup of tea and a biscuit settled it all and I think by the end of this trip we may well have his tummy tuned for Cape Cuisine.

It seems obvious now that we will not be home by Xmas but by how many days we will miss it I am still not sure, that would depend on the wind and current we have in the next week or so.

That is all for now and as usual regards with love from all on board.