Saturday morning dawned and I came on watch at 09:00 to relieve Mark. The boat is sailing fast under full sail with a 25 knot beam wind taking us along at 8knots or more. As a result our ETA in Cape Verde has come back from 14th December to the day before.
We breakfasted together in warm sunshine in the cockpit and the day has been absolutely perfect as we race along with a very peaceful motion. A couple of cargo ships appeared on our AIS chartplotter but at 10 miles I couldn't see them. One was a Chinese tanker heading to Singapore with an ETA on 14/1/17. By then I trust we will be with Kate and family in the Caribbean.
Bits of driftwood appeared intermittently. Mostly reddish sticks from reed beds, occasionally with a green shoot poking hopefully skywards. Mark saw a small white bird. Exciting stuff!
However last night I had a magical 3 hour watch from midnight with the moon blazing a path across the sea. I hard a few unusual wave sounds and soon saw the dark shapes of Dolphins. Over a period of an hour they kept coming from the west, leaping through the moonlight to play under our bow wave.
This voyage is almost perfect with steady wind, lovely temperature, and a kindly motion over the swell. However we have all been taking time to get our sea legs so there has been an uneasiness as we go about the tasks of navigating and making meals. Yesterday both Stuart and I succumbed briefly, but today are feeling on top of it all. Big smiles all round!
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