200 miles north of the Cape Verdes
by Kate Laird

It looks like we will be stopping for 24 hours or so at the Cape Verdes...it will be good to top up the diesel tanks as we have motored about 30 hours since leaving Las Palmas with full tanks, and replacing those 30 hours may be critical in the next 4,000 miles. It looks very light through the doldrums! We have a 2,000-mile range of diesel, so hopefully it is unnecessary, but worth stopping as our route takes us right past the Cape Verdes anyway.

A typical day today:

Helen and Anna were up playing Harry Potter until midnight, and then Helen was up again at three...so they are a bit slow today!

At first light, I went around the deck with the bucket and collected 12 hefty flying fish off the deck. Two more were tiny, so I threw them over. I wanted to wake Hamish to ask him how best to cook them, but he was quite tired so I didn't, but kept them in the bucket.

Anna got up first, and we were having her second reading lesson (review of "m" & "s"...) when the wind suddenly piped up to 30 knots, so I went and took over from Jimmy the wind pilot while it blew through (we'd had ominous black clouds that produced nothing an hour previously, but this had no cloud change or anything to warn of it).

The acceleration woke Hamish who came to see what was up...aha! I pointed out the bucket of fish, knowing he would not be able to go back to bed with such a haul in front of him. But he said he wasn't sure whether they needed gutting or not, either! He experimented and they are fine ungutted, just for future reference...ha. That means I can cook them myself. Bother.

Then we sewed some more chafe protection on the mainsail (while it was still up), and then I was off watch. Didn't even have a chance to read Worsley's Shackleton's Boat Journey which makes me appreciate the heat.

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.