Slowly to the west. Genaker sailing. Exept for the slow progress we are fine. We still expect to reach StLucia days before Christmas. Our estimate now is that we are halfway on Saturday, and on Monday there is again hope for more wind,and more stable trades. We feel thogh that the weather is a little exceptional.

We shall start a light rationing of fruit and eggs. And white cheese. But there is a lot of ham. No suffering! Food is plenty.

We have now moved to UTC-2 hours. So back home in Norway, they are 3 hours ahead of us. Before we reach StLucia we shall move to UTC-4. We move one hour every 15 degrees of longitude.

Every day we have contact with other boats on SSB, on the 4 MHz band. That is nice. We also get the position of other ARC boats when we demand it on e-mail. Tat is part of the entertainment, beside reading and good conversations in the cockpit. Each second day we get the weather report from Mads in Frivind. That e-mail is read with interest and care. That is for tomorrow.

The nights are warm. Just north of Cape Verde it was like steping out of a plane in the tropics. The “butter melted”, and we turned west. Now the skyes are bright both day and night most of the time, and the heavy fleeces are stowed away. In dfaytome there is 28 degrees in the saloon, but under the bimini in the cocpit,  in 25 degrees it is very pleasant. Some days we have a small sundowner in the cockpit and watch the sun sink into the ocean. Shortly after that we have dinner in the dark in the cockpit. After that the night routine starts. The three longest watches are 3 hours. One for each of us. First Lars for one hour, then Eva for three, then Bjørn for three,  then Lars for three hours from three till six in the morning, all local ship time, then Eva for one hour, and finally Bjørn for two hours. The two last ones are after sunrize. During daytime it is more informal. This scheme sims to function well for us.