Position 19.42.751N 022.32.121W
The afternoon and evening passed well
enough with visits from passing dolphins again with usual acrobatics and
inquisitive looks.
The weather has markably warmed up and we
are in bright sunshine with a slight covering of haze. The temperature appears to be hovering around
26 degrees and the rise in temperature is now starting earlier in the morning.
We have also been visited by hordes of
flying fish in droves. Groups of them seem to hold flying competitions both in
terms of duration and direction and fly for enormous times skimming across the
waves weaving ands bobbing.
A gull circled round and round the boat for
about 30 minutes checking us out - and then as soon as the next bout of flying
fish were out of the sea it was off to dive bomb for dinner. One flying fish
was slightly too ambitious and ended up on our port side deck but we hope once
put back in might have revived.
The wind has not been helpful and saw us
have to put away our main sail as the boom was banging and the sail flapping
with too little wind in the wrong direction and unhelpful wave direction. So we
have motor sailed along for a while as with the genoa alone up we were making
less than 4 knots most of the time.
Todays lunchtime soup was Tomato and Basil
accompanied by cheese toasties, clean bowls and plates all round.
There have been no other boats or ships in
sight all day and through the night although one or two have popped up on our
AIS system periodically – either passing cargo ships or for brief moments one
other yacht on ARC.
We now have 224nm to go to Mindelo having
covered 158nm in the last 24 hrs slowed substantially from previous sessions by
lack of wind with our average speed dropping to 6.6knts.
We have read up on Mindelo planned events
and see that on Sun 15th Nov in the evening there is an ARC+ Welcome
Function in the Mindelo Cultural Centre. “Food and drink available and
traditional local dancing”.
We should arrive at Mindelo in about 35 hours
(just after 1pm now) and the clocks go back by an hour for Mindelo time at 1am
Saturday morning if we keep up this average speed. We may choose to slow down
to arrive at a more sociable time – or will the racing instinct taker over!
All is good on board and everyone is fine.
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