It is noon on the third day of our trip. Smells of food are originating from Hans frying something in the galley fills the cabin. Lovely! The fire alarms have not gone off yet, This happens quite often when cooking; not only when I am cooking.

Picture perfect trade wind conditions and sparkling blue seas are accompanying Queen's Ransom this Wednesday morning. There are white small clouds in a very blue sky. We are making good progress; 168 nautical miles since noon yesterday. The conditions continue to be a bit boisterous; winds just in excess of 20 knots from the East which still makes us keep a full main sail, poled out genoa and stay sail combination. The gennaker is for later! We have been very blessed so far. Touch wood! That goes for equipment working good as well! However, I know that there is a very fine line between failures and very tough situations on one hand and the bliss of working order and good conditions on the other. I tell myself to take nothing for granted.

I struggled a bit last night with the email connection over the Inmarsat satellite phone, but succeeded again this morning. Our Mini-M system is quite old, maybe more modern equipment would work better. Peter is a confessed news junkie. We fired up our various radios to tune into the BBC World Service, but to no avail so far. I have heard that conditions are better in the hours of darkness.

We have settled in well onboard. No real need for any anti seasickness pills anymore. The ultimate test was that I could tackle a problem with the forward heads without! We produced our own water offshore for the first time this morning. The water maker was only running for twenty minutes or so, as we have used so little fresh water. Peter's verdict was that the quality of the water was better than the one in the hose on the pontoon in Santa Cruz.

We are now 305 nautical miles off Cabo Barbas in Northern Mauritania; exotic indeed.

The island of Sal, closest in the Cape Verde archipelago, is 390 nautical miles to our South while the closest of island of the Canaries, Hierro, is 340 nautical miles to the North East. However to our waypoint at 20 degrees North and 25 degrees west, we have done some two thirds of the distance. We should be at that point tomorrow night. Thereafter it is a straight run for Barbados!

Time for lunch!