Richard Hewson

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> Yesterday evening the wind died off completely. The forecasted evening breeze did not eventuate so we spent a lovely evening sitting on the cabin roof listening to music and watching the sun set. >
> The setting sun lit up the stormy clouds in a spectacular light show. To the East the rising moon completed the scene. >
> Just as we were putting the kids to bed the breeze developed into a trickle from the south so I deployed the Genoa again. At midnight when I woke up for my watch we had a nice consistent breeze from the south and we were reaching along at 5-6kts. Mid early morning we were doing 5.5-6.7kts. >
> I downloaded a new weather forecast GRIB file and put it into the system. The winds we were sailing with were not forecasted in the previous grib but showed true on the new GRIB, driven by a huge depression to the 800nm to the north with a low depression of 982mb, I was glad our route had us below 15*N or we would be experiencing 20kt headwinds at the moment, further north, closer to the centre of the low we would be 50kt winds! Instead we were enjoying a nice reach in 10kts. The wind stayed with us until Midday today when it started to drop off. >
> This morning Emilie and the kids went on deck and called to the dolphins to come. We have not seen a dolphin on this passage since before Cp Verde. The call magically worked and a pod of bottle nose dolphins came swimming towards Sunday Island and stayed with us for half an hour. >
> For the rest of the day we experienced rain squalls and variable wind giving us a lot of time down below. With only three days to go until Bequae we are making the most of the calm to do a bit of spring cleaning and maintenance so we can concentrate on having fun on arrival to land. One big job before we arrive is to sew a new awning, this has been an ongoing project but we need to bite the bullet now before anchored in the Caribbean sun. >
> Check out our position at http://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/positionreports.aspx?callsign=vk7hew >