More Atlantic

Day 9

Last night caught a long thin toothy fish and a nice fat albacore, so no more fishing for a few days.

What a day… it's a shame to be motoring, there is not a breath of wind, but the sea is glass. Just the long low swells to remind us where we are. You can see all the life when it's like this, turtles, fish breaking. It's a fairy tale when flying fish take off, breaking through the mirror, chasing their reflection away over the crests, scattering jewel drops. Sabine! Where are you!! the songs you could write today… Marcel had a swim with dolphins.

Day 10

For ten years we've been listening to 'Ferro Gaita', music from Cabo Verde, and dreaming of visiting their land. This morning the sun rose and there she was, Santo Antao, just a few hours sail.. but we have people waiting for us in Martinique, so with a lump in the throat and tear in eye we sail on. One more lost dream… perhaps life will give us another chance, another trip around the world?

Middle of the day we are rewarded. A pod of what I confidently identify (can't have too many experts) as False Killer Whales join us for some bow riding. They also do a few acrobatics. Wonderful.

All day I could smell the trades coming… 1kn from the North, then 1.5 from North East, then 2 then in the late afternoon we had 8kn from NE. I've been telling everyone I was not going to try using our spinnaker, but Marcel says it is just another sail, no problem, so once we'd worked out that 'T' didn't stand for top, nor for the French for 'pole', but was an English word for the corner at the bottom and front we were away. What a glorious sight! Motor off and gliding. Marcel also said taking it down is easy, it's just another sail, however he did have quite a sweaty brow after our second and successful effort to get it back on deck. Lucky we took it down in the dark so we couldn't see how frightening 'just another sail' is. Seriously, Marcel is fantastic, handled the whole thing beautifully and we hope to use it again sometime.

We now have our trade winds and did 156 miles on our first day.