Busy afternoons

19’15.5S 001’06.6E course 282′ speed 5,6kn

Although we dont need to do much, it seems we have no trouble keeping ourselves busy. Time is flying by and so are our afternoons!
Today our afternoon was spend finding our exact location during the Meridian Passage of the Sun. Yesterday was a mainly theoretical day, today was a more practical day. Not completely competent or confident with the instrument, the two sextants and their handlers came up with two different outcomes. But with direction and help of Tom and Myrthe (who have both been handeling the instruments on previous voyages) the two outcomes were certainly not far off. One was actually almost spot on with just 2 miles of our position! Well done navigators. To which one of them replied, you can actually get really close to our position with this instrument.. Well yes, it was the only way to navigate for most of the sailing era, it has existed for over 10 times longer then the GPS signal has. Worlds were discovered, routes were found and wars were fought with just this instrument.
Any way, it gives the sailor hope, that we can get so close on a first try

We have had some great banana solutions send to us through facebook, but not really any we have not tried yet.. We are having pancakes this afternoon, we have made bananabread two times, smoothies eat up the most bananas and dinner has also been littered with them. Maybe fried banana is something we have not tried yet. But frying with our seastate is not the safest. So we continue our quest for more banana recipes.

The weather and wind have been variable. We have had sunshine and warmth, but also the occasional drizzly shower. The wind picks up to a 4 bf wind and then decreases drastically and we are left bobbing around every now and then. Right now the wind is picking up and we are back doing 6,7 knots, instead of 5. We gybed just before dinner time. The gybe went very smoothly. As it was our second time, you could really see the improvements on the last time. In about 426 miles we may pass Saint Helena if the winds stay this way. But the winds are predicted to decrease and almost disappear in a few days.. lets see how we handle that. Possibly our first swim stop! Water temperature is now 24 degrees, almost more then our average day temperature.

Flying fish have been jumping on deck and cause quite the spectacle as they are thrown back into the ocean. From hitting our safety nets 3 times, to screams as the fish were believed to be dead, but turned out to still be alive and slimy hands that need to be cleaned asap.

Other then that… all is well on board,
Jet