Red sunrise
It was a slow start to the day as I think we were all still recovering from the buzz of our departure. My watch between midnight and 3am seemed to be the most testy with wind getting over 20 knots. We were screaming along but decided to get the Code sail down just incase the wind continued to increase. This didn’t really affect our speed too much, it just felt more manageable.
Everyone had a reasonable first sleep under way. Luke has found his single bed way too small and slept upstairs in the fresh air. Of course we are now out of signal but have had a few updates via the satellite. Phoebs got back to London safely and has kept us up to speed, looks like we are forging a unique route sticking close to the African coast to Cape Verde. Quite a few boats are now taking a more direct route to Cape Verde and some have taken the northern route straight out into the Atlantic. By lunchtime the wind had gone and we were back to motoring. Our weather forecast came through and looks like we have picked the week of no wind! We will most probably just pop into Cape Verde to refuel with out stopping for a layover, that way we don’t have to check into the country. Although a stamp from this tiny little independent country could look quite cool in our passports!
Other news from Phoebs was that the South African named boat, Thula has not left the pontoon in Las Palmas. They are actually from NY, the wife is originally from East London where Rowan grew up, so they had lots of connections. Her father was the Reverend who was a friend of Donald Woods, a long story that the South African readers will appreciate. They fled SA one night during the apartheid era as the government was not happy with her father. Anyway one of their boat crew was snowed in somewhere in the States and missed a flight. He finally arrived a day late with Covid! Poor things, you prepare so hard for the departure and that happens.
We were discussing last night that the down side of joining the rally is that you have to leave on a set date rather than being dictated to by the weather. Looks like we have a particularly wind less departure date. This is very untypical weather, and we just hope the Trade winds get going again when we get to Cape Verde.
Everyone is doing really well, and in the calm waters Luke was able to manage a very good yoga session on the front of the boat. This inspired Han and Tom to follow up, just Rowan and I failing to muster up the energy.
Looks like we are motoring through the night, winds resuming sometime in the morning we hope.
Luke waking up from his bed upstairs
Luke and Han exercising up front
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