Reading: An Unsung Hero (Michael Smith) & Dead Lions – Mick Herron (second in the Slow Horses series)
Weather: Wind more consistent – E 3-4
Thought for the day: How did ratlines get their name?
Evening meal: Chicken, pumpkin, chick pea and bacon mix with mashed potato and salad
Course: 185-210oC
Distance covered: At 1200 we had done 2,444 miles and at 1700 had 1,515 to arrival in Brazil
Wildlife headcount: A turtle swimming past!
A fairly quiet day today. In the morning watch Erik went back up the ratlines to secure the new ones we made yesterday while we relaxed feeling smug at having managed to splice them. He came down saying that they had worked well and could he now have six more even shorter. This was not the outcome we expected, so we started again, struggling to get three tucks of the splice in at either end while making them shorter. We only managed a couple before the end of the watch, so we have more to look forward to tomorrow.
For the rest of the day we headed just west of south towards another arbitrary waypoint designed to keep us offshore and miss another set of shallows on our path. From there on we will gradually head west to our destination close to Rio de Janeiro – that is assuming that the weather plays ball. The current weather forecast is showing calms near to there which might mean up to 3-4 days of motoring and that would mean using more fuel than Jet is prepared to, so we will see how the weather pattern evolves. It is some days away and a lot can change. We had a sweepstake during the evening about what day we will arrive, but we might all have been a bit optimistic suggesting sometime around the 12th or 13th. With just over 1,500 miles to go, a lot will depend on the sort of mileages we manage over the next week or so. Today was a good day for mileage, but what about the next few ….. we will see …..