8 December 2013

The wind picked up yesterday evening to around a F4 and we were bowling along at 6kts. The wind dropped not long after that and while we could still hold a good course our speed was nearly halved and the sails were back to the old slap and rattle. I was up regularly during the night checking for land and at 0400 I could see the cluster of orange dots in the SE that were the lights ashore on Santo Antao. I could see then that we were going to be clear of the island no problem.

At first light I could make out the grey top of the island above the lighter grey of the early morning haze. The lower half was shrouded completely. An hour later and it had all disappeared as we sailed further into the SW.

We had a visitor in the morning. It was a bird that looked like a small white heron. It circled Elsi then landed on the round for’ard hatch, the nearest thing aboard to an avian helipad. I got a photo of it but when I went below for the video camera it took off. A photo was one thing but it wasn’t being part of any movie. I followed it and it joined up with five others. They circled and I thought they were all going to land but they headed off to the south. I looked it up in my book that’s supposed to have all the seabirds of the world but there was nothing similar. I can only assume they were land birds that had strayed from their familiar territory.

A few goose barnacles have started growing on Elsi; mainly near the stern and on the port (sunny) side. It’s not surprising really. We’ve been moving so slowly for a while now in these warm waters. But they are almost all on the green of the hull and not on the coppercoat anti-fouling. I scraped some off today with a scraper on the end of the boathook.

It’s very hot again today. The deck is hot underfoot and I need to cover up to go outside otherwise I would cook. The wind now (1300) has dropped to a near calm again and we are rolling all over the place. The reason for going to the west side of the Cape Verde’s was to find a steadier wind..but, it’s just a year when the Trades don’t blow. It does happen and we’ve caught one of those years. We still have a way to go to the equator so I hope it will pick up before too long.