Lightning and unpredictable wind

Caterpillar pic from Phoebe in St Lucia jungle

22nd Jan – day 13

Dark brooding squalls all morning with loads of rain and hardly any wind, so lots of motoring. We can’t put the engines on too fast as we need to make sure we have enough fuel to last us. I hope we don’t regret not filling up the two big fuel containers Rowan bought at the last minute in Las Palmas! We think we are still in position 6 out of 52 boats, so we really are not doing too badly.

The wind changed direction all the time and nothing like what was predicted, so we think it must be all the big squalls we are sailing through, creating their own little weather systems. Tracking the squalls on our radar is really helpful, Han thinks they look like huge fiery cancer cells on the screen, quite menacing watching them come straight for us. We had some huge dark brooding clouds with loads of rain to get through. In the morning there was lightening around which is not good news for us Catamarans, so it was good to see the weather clear in the afternoon and lovely to have the sun out again.

The dolphins came and joined us again playing in our bow waves for about 10 minute before shooting off into the distance.

The wind picked up a little which gave us a good boost of speed on this slow journey.

We had a brilliant starry night again, Luke spotting another shooting star! Amazing we have been at sea for two weeks now.

Dark cloudy start to the day

Keeping busy

The afternoon clears with a wonderful rainbow

Tom back sunbathing

Another gorgeous sunset