Friday 25 February

0300 - 12 36'N 63 56'W - Picked up two to three knots of adverse current. First major negative set since we've left - guess we've been lucky in that. Perhaps it is the fact that it has been blowing so hard in the past few weeks, which tends to push the water out of the basin oVer which it is blowing. Then, when the wind dies, the water tends to return, reducing or reversing current.

0500 - Negative set is gone and the GPS and speedometer have gone back to agreeinG with each other.

0635 - 12 19'N 63 05W Big black squall envelopes us in its cool mist. Momentary pick up in winds and lots of rain to wash some of the salt off the boat. This feels like th first tropical squall we've sailed through since leaving California.

Prickly Bay lies just 80 miles over the horizon.

We are approaching from some 20 miles north of our layline, so that we can use the land mass to block any swells which may be sweeping in from the east. While the wind is supposed to stay NE, and the island should swing it more to the N, the trades sometimes funnel between the bottom of Grenada and Trindidad/Tobago/Venezuela on a E to SE heading, even when the rest of the area is NE. Strictly from a wind standpoint it would be better to sag to the S and pick up what would end up being distance to weather in a SE shift. However, this would expose us to potentially strong easterly currents, and possibly the seas mentioned earlier. We'd rather fight the SE shift, if it comes, without current and in smoother water. But the odds are the wind will stay light from the NE.