Gary's Deliveries

  Monday 17th Nov ’25 Another day heading towards the middle of the Atlantic with no one in sight and no one else seen since the day we left Verde. The only visitors we have seen are the odd pod of dolphins and a few flying fish, several of them head butted the front windows leaving an oily stain behind.  While Richard was having shower yesterday one of them even flew through the open hatch (see the pic) and landed on the floor flapping around while he tried to pick it up and send it back to where it came from!  We are making good progress with sustained 20kt winds we are have averaged 8.5kts for the last 24hrs with just the “big red” headsail out.  Long may it last! Well the day went a bit sideways. While I was sitting in the forward cockpit trying to get a bit of a breeze to cool down I looked up at “big red” only to see a little bit of daylight through the material two thirds of the way up the sail - BUGGER! So we headed downwind to reduce the pressure on the sail...

 Sunday 16th Nov '25 It's currently the middle of Sunday/Monday night and we are 310nm west of Cape Verde which means we are 310nm closer to Martinique.  Only 1,793nm to go! The weather since leaving Verde has been a constant 15-25kts from the North East so we have been sailing along quite nicely with either "big red" (our large downwind cruising sail) only, the normal furling gib only or both when the wind is directly from behind, thats when we are "wing on wing".  Currently "big red" is the only sail out along with one of the engines to keep up our average speed which is currently around 7.5-8kts so we are doing good speed.  

 Saturday 15th Nov '25 A long day today. We were running a little early to enter the port of Mindelo in Cape Verde so we slowed right down to enter at first light as it's an unknown area to me so safety first. It started getting light around 06.30 as we slowly entered the port area with 2 other yachts a few miles behind us.  The plan was ot go straight to the fuel dock, hope nobody was there, and wait till 09:00 for it to open.  As luck would have it the dock was empty so we tied up along side and was told by a member of the marine staff that we needed to move along a bit to allow for another cat to tie up.  Thankfully we were first in the line for when it did open. We timed it perfectly as 2 other boats arrived looking to top up but had to anchor and wait. When the guy came down to open up he found there was an issue with the one and only diesel pump - it was broken and we had ot wait for the engineer to come and fix it!  It's early on Saturday morning!  S...

 Friday 14th Nov '25 As you will have noticed there was no blog yesterday, this is partly cause there was no wind, the sea was calm, nothing happened, I didn't take any photos and no change from the day before.  Also I forgot! With that in mind today has been the same again.  It seems we have been following a high that caught us up after we left the Canaries and either it has followed us or we have followed it, which ever way you look at it, down to Cape Verde. It's 14:40 on Friday and we are about 90nm from Mindelo, Cape Verde so will be there in the morning for a top up of fuel, a few fresh fruit and veg and back out to sea again. The Cape Verde Islands are a group of islands about 900kms (550 miles) off the coast of West Africa sort of level(ish) with Dakar, Senagal which explains why the temp has risen so much! We are heading for the port of Mindelo which is one of the most north westerly islands.                 ...

 Wednesday 12th Nov '25 It's the end of a VERY calm and sunny day, currently 19:30.   Sunrise was amazing as was the whole day really. Wind was basically zero all day and the sea had a slight ocean swell with a near mirror sheen on the surface.  I have added a couple of photos which will give you an idea of the conditions. We also saw a couple of pods of dolpins and several small turtles floating on the surface bobbing their heads up to see who was making all the noise.  And only one vessel all day which has just shown up on our radar about 6nm ahead.   Sunrise!  Looking out my cabin window! Sunset!

 Tuesday 11th Nov '25 We have had an amazing day with the sun shinning and calm seas.  Unfortunately that meant zero wind. We have been wing on wing for most of yesterday and overnight the wind slowly died to nothing.  In came the sails and up went the revs.   We have 475nm to go to Mendelo in Cape Verde where we will top up the tanks and get going.  The forecast is for little to no wind for the next 350-400 of those miles so looks like the old iron horses will be pushing us along for a bit yet.   I am hopeful we will get there on Friday before the fuel dock closes at 18:00, fingers crossed!