The good sailing winds continue for us and we're making decent progress. Having received the GRIB files yesterday, which indicated an inverted trough to the NW of the Cape Verde Islands, we decided to head south to minimise the impact of this weather system. Being now at 20N we have reverted to a more westerly course, next stop St Lucia., I have to confess that all the crew are hoping the seas will calm slightly - trying to cook is proving problematic at the moment with food flying around the galley, All the nicely prepared stir-fry veg ended up on the floor under the navigator's table on Friday; the freshly baked bread in the washing-up water Saturday lunchtime and the BBQ sauce also in the sink last night. I'm hoping we've learnt our lesson now!
Phil has now rejoined the watch/helming rota and it's made a big difference to the rest of the crew who were all feeling a bit jaded, We take our hats off to those yachts with only two crew on board.
Yesterday afternoon Paul noticed a fin moving through the water about 75m behind us, He's convinced it was neither a dolphin or whale and was obviously a big creature judging by the area of turquoise water surrounding the fin. He can only conclude it was a shark, and a very big one at that.
Time for lunch now .... bread just out of the oven.