Day 7: We've been at sea for a week; 800 miles on and all well, having just turned right at the Cape Verde Islands (where the "butter melts"). Only 2068 miles to go as I look at the log! No disasters: only a few gear breakages aboard and crew all fit; Lizzie, thankfully, no seasickness whatsoever which is a great bonus.
Yesterday we were visited for half an hour by a pilot whale, swimming alongside, and we've seen numerous flying fish & dolphins. Glyn caught a small bonito and, better still, a couple of dorado which did us just fine for supper two nights ago - one hour from hook to plate.
A few words to reassure those at home concerned for our safety: on dark moonless watch last night we were able to utilise our new piece of safety equipment. This is called an AIS (auto info system) whereby we can pick up specific data from a ship via radio and a designated receiver. We receive these signals (and all commercial ships must transmit by law) at 32 miles and this tells us: ship's name, number, heading , course and speed (a bit like a radar). We were a bit surprised to pass relatively close to a handful of ships last night and realised they were on a regular lane to/from Rio & Recife, Brazil. A couple approached within a mile but, armed with this info. it was very easy to call them on VHF and establish no collision course. Definitely a reassurance!
Other systems are working well: we can make water aboard but crew are so careful we're running a near full tank still. Fridge is keeping the beers cold and all powered by the "duogen" trailing water alternator (we haven't run the engine since the first two, windless, nights. Meanwhile, the wind-vane does all our helming for us, effortlessly. I really don't know why we are here! Hoping to pick up the tradewinds proper now we've passed the Verdes but these winds have been somewhat disrupted this past wek or so by mid-Atlantic depressions (hence our track well south). Water temperature is now 26 degrees and air definitely warmer though cloud cover today and no call from crew for the bimini yet.