Dolphins & luminescence

Grainy drone photo of the flat Atlantic! Very brave to send the drone out from a boat as when you press ‘return home’ it goes back to where it took off from – not from where the boat is now! And if the boat has moved, the drone goes straight in the ocean.

I was on the early 6am shift and as the light broke at about 7:15am I was greeted with a huge pod of small dolphins splashing through the waves. They did a big circuit and then were gone. Tom had seen them in his earlier watch and said they were creating wonderful luminescence. Han was gutted to have missed them, but she was passed out having done the midnight shift.

The wind continued to hover in the mid teens and the Code sail was doing a good job of getting us through the water, averaging 9-7 knots. It was extremely comfortable as the sea is so flat. We are still hugging the African coast like our router suggested. Judging from satellite communications we are still way out on a limb by ourselves. But we believe we have evaded huge windless areas!

We took advantage of the calm conditions and did a bit of boat tidying and repairs. My cordless Shark hoover is working wonders. We had a few good rounds of Speed scrabble that Han delights in beating us.

We have finally hit our waypoint along the African coast and we are now heading straight for the Cape Verde Islands. We were bombarding poor Phoebs with last minute requests via the satellite as she leaves for St Lucia today.

As predicted after a glorious sunset the wind died completely and we had to put the engines back on. We had a delicious meal of bangers with truffle bean mash and leeks. Phoebs will be pleased to know that the veggie bangers went down a treat even if Tom thought they looked like enormous dog poo!