Saturday 24th November 22:37.57N 021:19.05W

 

We left San Miguel marina in Tenerife with no wind anticipating a short passage to La Gomera, but found a good wind being funnelled through the channel between the two islands and decided to just keep going.  We had excellent sailing in bright sunshine, which continues to keep our spirits up.  After the hard passages against adverse winds getting to the Canary Islands, it was such a joy to have the wind behind the beam and the sun shining.  We are now about 360 mile NNE of the Cape Verde Islands and 250 miles west of the coast of Mauritania into our fourth day of comfortable downwind sailing.  I am indebted to Kevin and John for their great help on the difficult passages, while Rossi and Gill are now both keeping us well fed and the boat progressing.  The extra person on board makes the watches less onerous and provides free time at last both for catching up on odd jobs around the boat and proper rest.

 

The night before last we had a strange close encounter with a French catamaran.  It was coming up behind us at a slight angle on a direct collision course and failed to respond to either VHF calls or a horn signal.  Fortunately, visibility was good and the sea moderate, so we repeated our attempts to contact the boat until it was within 100m and closing. We then started the engines to accelerate and clear ahead of the formerly overtaking boat after giving clear sound signals.  Throughout this whole process the boat had never deviated from its course, was invisible to radar and was showing a steaming light – wrongly indicating that it was under power.  As we settled onto a new course upwind of the boat, someone called on the VHF to say “merci” and “thank you”.  We assume that the skipper was single handed, but don’t know for sure.

 

Yesterday a Belgian boat (“Follie”?) called on the VHF to tell us that it had six French people on board and was going to the Cape Verde Islands for two weeks before heading to Martinique.  We exchanged pleasantries and wished them a safe voyage.  Later in the day we heard repeated calls from the Belgian skipper asking if anyone was calling him.  On one occasion he called us again and spoke to Gill for a few minutes before announcing that he had to go and was sitting down for dinner and waiting for a sausage!

 

Until today we have concentrated on progressing south to the trade wind belt, and are about 320 miles south from Tenerife.  This has allowed us to deploy the gennaker, but has been relatively slow (5-6 knots).  Today we have headed WSW to take advantage of a favourable wind which is driving us along at 8-9 knots. We probably need to go further south yet for the trade winds, but it seems a shame to miss the opportunity to progress in the right direction.

 

Nights are still cool enough for long trousers and weatherproof jacket, but the days are delightfully warm.