Yacht Wishing For The Moon

The hum of the engine has been with us now for more than a day. The sea is mirror calm except for the occasional exciting little rippled sea which gets us speculating whether this time we can put up the Genoa, but then there is nothing again. Still the engine is (touch wood) performing well, consuming about 2 liters of fuel an hour and giving us 5 knots. So theoretically we could keep motoring for 4 days, leaving the two 25 liter fuel cans in the Lazarette in reserve. But the forecast is hopeful that we will pick up a breeze around tomorrow lunchtime.

In the mean time we had our Lamb barbecue, de-boned and marinated in garlic, soy and vinegar, honey, olive oil, rosemary and thyme, and a splash of Tio Pepe. Baked potatoes with the leftover Aoli that Jonathan made to go with the Bacalau fish cakes - very garlicy but delicious and cut with a little mayonnaise as a topping for the potatoes. Greek salad on the side. Leftover lamb with coleslaw and Tzatziki for lunch, and Lamb curry for dinner tonight. We're getting by! Made another apple cake today to cheer us up.

Fresh fruit and veg getting low. last fruit salad tomorrow. Plenty of spuds, onions lemons and oranges left, and some apples and fruit juices, so no danger of scurvy yet.

I rigged the deckwash hose yesterday so that we could cool off without losing another bucket (or ourselves) over the side. Very refreshing and the sea is very warm. Lashings of fresh water at the moment also, as with the enging running we can top up the water tanks with the reverse osmosis watermaker.

One disappointment - no current! the North Equatorial Current which should run at between half and one and a half knots is rarely evident. Sometimes I note that we have some current with us, but a couple of hours later it has gone. This also applies to the Canary Current which should run from the Canaries to Cape Verde, but again was absent most of the time.

So we plod on with two wooden stalked green garden umbrellas rigged over the cockpit for shade. Thank goodness for the iron sails! 130 miles noon to noon yesterday. We're getting there! The atmosphere is incredibly clear with the few scattered cumulus clouds seeming to thicken in places towards the horizon around us because of the curvature of the earth, and we can see the clouds clearly bending over the horizon. A 2-3 meter swell rolls sedately out of the north, a hundred meters or more between crests. The smooth surface is occasionally marked by the frantic sculling of a flying fish or two. Johnny saw a fin yesterday, but no other sea life evident in the clear blue waters.

The dawns and sunsets have been spectacular which the crew have been busy recording on their devices. It's a shame that we can only post text up on the blog while away at sea using shortwave radio to communicate, but that will be rectified when we get to land. Cathleen has started forwarding on your comments to us which we avidly read this morning (she hadn't known we could not access them onboard). Thank you all.

Best wishes to all,

Len