Yes we are still looking for the trade winds. We motored south all night at
about 5 knots and at sunrise the crew put up the sails and doused the engine to
catch the breeze – little though it was. We decided to spend most of the day
just trying to sail (to conserve fuel) and we did, but the penalty was we were
travelling at only 1-1.5 knots ans sometimes we ended up heading back towards
Cape Verde Islands (yes Anna asked me yesterday if I was going backwards!!) but
we have achieved some south – down to less than 19 degrees North now so we are
heading in the right direction I think to find the trade winds. The low
pressure ridge west of Cape Verde Islands is the problem which has flattened the
pressure and pushed the trades even further south.....
Oh well, can’t control the weather. Johnny caught another fish today
(score JR –1; POG – 1: JM – 3) and it was a Wahoo – lovely fish too. There was
another big fish in the sea trying to chase it as Johnny wound it in, and it
jumped right out of the water after the Wahoo – a beautiful deep blue fish –
maybe Blue Marlin??? Not huge but fast.
Today a few more repairs were needed about the place (ie yacht), we found
one of the main battens was two feet out of its pocket to the rear. So down
comes the main, and we fiddle about with the batten tensioning device at the
mast, and get the batten back in and out of the way and then Graham did a great
job sewing in a new piece of leather and closed the hole in the leather batten
pocket. Then still with stich in hand we moved onto the dodger where we
had a hole develop on the rear port corner against the stainless steel supports.
Gormet sandwiches for lunch and Tuna for dinner tonight – looking forward to
that delight for sure.