What a morning! About 730am we snap. The batteries are really low and some of the instruments have given up the ghost – Paul used a lot of power on his watch trying to get his sailmail (emails). We try to wake Paul up but he’s fast asleep so we turn the gennie on. The course we’re steering is taking us too far away from where we want to be, cause we have the autopilot set to sail the best course to the wind. So we wake up the boys and set about gybing the sails. As we do this Will sees a huge fish off our port quarter. It’s a huge dorado (also known as mui mui). Jokingly he let’s out the fishing line and within seconds the very same and obviously very stupid fish is hooked!!!

But alas after what seems like hours trying to reel it in, whiskey at the ready (a little drop of strong alcohol behind the gills kills without all the blood and splatter a knife would inflict, and very peaceful) and adrenaline pumping we manage to let him escape! And before you disbelievers out their question our call that it was at least a meter long we have photographic and video evidence!!

We get the sails sorted and then Will, still mother, cooks us omelette and toast for brekkie. After which we decide to finally put the engine on as we are pretty much dead in the water. We fly past the ARC racing boat that’s been stalking us all night and in and around that there’s lots of activity on the radio. Dan our previous skipper from Skyelark calls us up but we fail to find a free channel to chat to him on. We crack on with lunch – we’re now back on mother watch – feta salad we think is the order of day.

We manage to listen in again to the ARC daily radio chat and get some up to date weather info. There should be some wind tonight hopefully. Interestingly we’ve put the engine on reluctantly but through choice, the ARC guys can’t as they get penalty points for doing so. Ah well, decision made we all spend a leisurely afternoon watching turtles float past, lots of fun had by all until some turn in for a nap. zzzzzzz

Late afternoon and the sea is like glass. We see another yacht off our starboard side motoring. It can’t be an ARC boat we figure as it’s got it’s engine on and it is heading across our stern. With some bino action we see it’s about 60-65ft and german with a guy in red speedo’s on the deck. He’s watching us watching him. We wondered for a time if he was trying to signal to us but we realised that it was just the sun’s reflection. We thought if he wanted to contact us he would have called us on the radio until we notice he might have been but ours was switched off. Doh! We tried then to call him but failed miserably then he called us and said he knew our captain (paul was asleep) and boat from the trip down from Gib to Lanzarote. He said he was heading to east Cape Verde but headed more like directly to Mauritania.

Dinner was yet another feast (obviously as we were cooking it :0)) tuna, crushed philly potatoes and minted peas. Followed by chocolate angel delight cheese-cakey-thing.

By 1945 we all agree there’s enough wind to try and sail again so the engine goes off. Hurrah!