Day 3

So yesterday’s plan was to get to the north side of the loop in order to pick up a positive current.  We started off with 0.5 knots against and it gradually built up to around 1.2 knots against – a lesser man (me) would have decided to cut our losses and head south but (after much discussion!) we kept going.  I didn’t want to get anywhere near the Madagascar coast (the cruising guides say keep 150 miles offshore) so I will admit I did keep wittering on about it.  Just before dark, the adverse current had gone down to around 0.5 knots.  We gybed and a few hours later we had positive current.  OK so I’ve stopped wittering!  We kept a decent speed up during the night but our daily run is down a bit.  This sea is up (around 2m) and we’re rocking and rolling!  We have around 17 knots of wind from behind.  It’s just after 8am and we’ve now gybed back and put a reef in the main – there’s 100% cloud cover so looks like it may be a rainy/squally day.  Yesterday’s grib files indicated that we will have to go through a front later today so we are anticipating a bumpy ride.

No cetaceans or even sea birds yesterday – quite a few ships and one we had to call up to ask to keep clear which he very obligingly did.

Date and time: 24th October 09.30 local (GMT + 4 hrs) 

Position:  S25:45:831 E047:48:576

24 hours distance:  174nm