Emily was on watch last night when the wind finally picked up enough to sail and the motor went off. In my berth the sudden quiet made me feel very happy, and the chuckle of water lapping along next to me sent me back to sleep.
Next morning we were sailing nicely at 7 to 8 knots heading SW, but with dramatic blue-black tropical rainstorms ahead. As we got closer the northerly wind went south, and so we were struggling to sail in the direction we wanted. Our track showed us being forced ever away from our course northwards or then again south and east. We eventually rolled the Genoa and motored SE at 5 knots, hoping to get out of these doldrums by Tuesday 28th.
During the day we had two new visitors. First I spotted a fin in the water, which is the first shark we have seen whilst sailing. Later I called Mark to try to get a photo of a new bird, which had the head colours of a Pomerine Skua, which migrates through this region from Antarctic to Arctic and back!
We are running out of topics of conversation, and ended up having a long involved and ultimately circular argument about how best to implement the cooking rota. Final outcome was that the person on watch from 18:00-21:00 prepares lunch when they come off watch at noon, and cook supper to be served at 18:00 before the sun sets.
Tonight I cooked, using half our remaining fresh chicken, still cool in the failing freezer, served hot pimiento chicken served with savoury sliced pommes dauphinoise. We ate at table in the cockpit while the sun set flaming through archways of gold, reflected in a glittering gold sea. For pudding i produced a hot banana, apple and oat cake. Having washed up, and cleared away for the night I am now back on watch till nine pm. It's easy to think we are alone out here, but yesterday I was surprised to see the bright lights of a fishing vessel 3 miles away almost 500 miles from Ecuador.
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