One week in, one tack, one gybe, and a whole lot of fuel later .... the South Easterly Trade winds have arrived! Sailing goose-winged Tom has achieved the sea speed record to-date of 8.8 knots ( Scratch that ,Troye just managed a 9.2 whilst typing this note) some excillirating sailing due to the limitations of the main on a run ie the standing rig is in the way.

On the biological front, the Atlantic has shown its bio-diversic hand in the form of two whales (possibly southern rights, from the curve of their back and the small dorsal fin ), two glow-in the dark dolphins, a turtle and an ex- flying fish (found aft of the starboard bow). Aerially consisted of the odd big brown, and big grey jobs. bbj and bgj respectively.

The shooting stars have been just heavenly, set against the back drop of
Mars in the east and Venus about 5 degrees off the port bow. These where only noticed due to the lack-luster performance of the Sun to show a Green Flash.

Barring Troye's two to nothing "opps another washing up item just went off the back , and smacks of someone not wanting to scrub the decks" A4018 is starting to have quite sparkle, now that the grime of Cape Town has finally been removed.

Thanks to Mark for the opening to today's blurb sheet. He had his birthday
yesterday which was duly celebrated with rich fruit cake and custard.

Since leaving we have been frustrated with contrary winds and hot days. The up side was that we were able to get the boat cleaned from the city grime whilst "sailing" more evenly and being able to dig beep into the bucket of elbow grease.

With the south east winds have come a lot of clouds and we are all feeling the cooler temperatures today. The rain squalls on the 6 to 9 watch brought a refreshing feeling and with a chamois put the sparkle back on the windows.

For those new to our sailing circle I carry a long range SSB radio which allows getting weather information and also being able to get these messages out via an amateur radio system. By it's nature we can not do long messages or take extensive mails, but will do our best to keep all informed.

A daily position report gets sent out with the noon utc position and a short text quote of the day ( 80 characters ). This can be viewed at www.shiptrak.org Enter callsign ZS1TA in the top left box and the click on view last 30 days in the drop down box. Wait for the google map to load with the plots, (or you can click on the latest position link on the right of this page. Shaun).

I see that Shaun is adding to the blog site again, so Thank you Shaun.

So much for today, see you all next time.

Cheers, Tom