Well, if you can’t have enough wind to rocket you along at perfect speeds, then today we got the very next best thing. We had the spinnaker up all day, and the wind so consistent and the seas so slight, that the autopilot did all the work while we tried to avoid the blinding sun. As the sun set over the western horizon, we doused the spinnaker and came head to wind, to replace the rudder on our Hydrovane windvane, and lo-and-behold a mating pair of giant Mahi Mahi popped out from under the boat where they had also been hiding from the sun. If that wasn’t enough of a surprise, what should show up next but a HUGE turtle. Probably at 1.5 m across, slowly paddling around trying to decide what happened to his sunshade. He swam around for a minute and then with a couple swift strokes, dived and continued his trip into the deep blue…
Time: 1800
Boat Speed: 5.0 kts
Course: 295 T
Wind Speed: 12 kts
Barometer: 1010
Distance to Fernando de Noronha: 727 NM
Distance previous 24 hours: 112 NM