Cloud Jumper - Cloud Jumper skipping along..

Day 8 and we have not killed each other yet! in fact we make a pretty damn good team! We have had to head a bit more South to avoid an area of high pressure, amazing there are sometimes still 3 or 4 boats around us on Cloud Jumpers AIS system but we very rarely sight another boat so it is pretty exciting when we do even if it is just a dot on the horizon.

I caught a fish the other evening, a decent size Dorado  which only just fitted in the fridge. Jowan did an expert job of filleting it and in the evening he cooked it up and it fed us really well with enough left for tonight too. I am having a break from fishing for a while it was a bit stressful wrestling with a big fish thrashing around in the cockpit.
The other morning while I was on watch 6am -9am we think we bumped into a whale, we were sailing at around 5knots when suddenly there was a load thud and the boat stalled, Neil jumped out of his port quarter berth pretty sharpish to see what had happened and it was pretty loud from where he was sleeping so I reckon we must have glanced off of it on the port side. Hope he/she is okay! Keel is still attached which is good.
We have had reports from the rally organisers of an unmanned and unlit 10m fishing boat drifting around, also some kind of large metal Navigational bouy which had escaped, so we are on the watch for potential hazards but at night we rely on good dollop of luck.
We have started to see loads of flying fish which are really cool. About 100 or so whizzed past this morning, I am not sure if they are a shoal of flying fish when swimming and then a flock when flying haha.
I managed to put a big tear in our spinnaker head sail yesterday while hauling it on the boat after part of it collapsed into the sea while we were taking it down. Snagged it on a stanchion. We managed to get it sewn and it seems to be holding well.
We are now well  South of the Tropic of Cancer and it is starting to get really hot during the days and even through the nights, we have found the best way to cool down is to go to the stern platform and throw buckets of sea water over our selves -  pictures of Mathias doing just that to follow!
We are about a third of our way into the voyage and unfortunately have no apples and just 6 oranges left so we will start rationing, on the plus side we have loads of cheesy biscuits.

Jowan has been in charge of Spinnakers and has been extremely patient in showing us all how to successfully get them up and down without ripping them to shreds! Neil and I got it flying this morning so far so far so good!

That's all to report for now.

I will send some pictures too.

Love from us Pete, Neil, Jowan and Mathais xx