I have written about the green flash on other voyages and once again at sun-set all eyes are peeled to the West hoping to see the phenomena. As the last tip of the sun sinks below the horizon refraction of the light takes place and the colours are separated resulting in a brief flash of green to the horizon. With much cloud cover present lately there have not been many opportunities for a sun-set even, although a few days ago with a clearer horizon and quite good reds and oranges we watched with bated breaths in anticipation. The briefest green crown topped the suns arc as it dipped below the horizon. Demonstrating it's elusiveness Mark and I witnessed it whilst Troye, having missed it was wondering what it was all about.

From a few days out of Cape Town we often start seeing flying fish. They dart out of the water and skim across the waves to escape an approaching peril. Rising singly and in small groups of up to 8 or 10 they are fascinating to watch. Yesterday afternoon the sea suddenly boiled and looking like locusts rising from the ground a great hoard of flying fish erupted from the water to skim away from our path. Certainly the most that I have ever seen at once took off and flitted over the waves to safety. There were literally hundreds! Now the question, was it a flock, flight, swarm or school as they traveled through the air?

Mark was reminded of the Peter Sellars "Pink Panther" movie where he was
asked "Does your dog bite?:...." As weight constraints are an issue for flying back, asked Tom "Does your laptop have a USB port?" To which Tom
replied "Yes!!!!" However when the need arose we discovered that the laptop is his communications computer of many voyages is a vintage model running Windows 98 nogal. Needless to say that without the required drivers Marks electronic book could not be charged. The library is now happily collecting electrons.

The steady south east trade winds have been kind to us the last few days
with good daily runs being recorded. Running on the same tack with little
change to our heady our track moved across the chart in a straight line
slightly high on the direct course to St. Helena. After doing our noon position readings we gybed to head for the north east corner of the island. Anticipation is high as we expect to reach our first objective some time tomorrow.

Cheers, The Crew on A4018.

P.S. The sea is still blue!