It’s Friday, and we are 2 hours away from being into our 5th day of sailing.

We are currently plodding along northward (course over ground of 15 degrees) at a speed of 3.5 knots. The sea has calmed and we have 4 knots of true wind, so all things considered we are going quite fast.

When looking at the weather some days ago, Friday may have been the right day to break north, and the last 2 weather forecasts also confirmed this, hence the new direction.

Yesterday (Thursday), we didn’t have so much wind and had to motor sail for some hours to keep some momentum up. This included heading a little south hunting for wind, before ultimately deciding to go north this morning.

We left the BVIs with 2 bunches of nice green bananas hoping that they would last some time. Unfortunately, they are already all getting mushy, not helped by the fact that we stood on 2 of them.

Eating 2 bunches of bananas at any speed when they are already mushy is probably a bit much.

So, on with the baking! And delicious banana bread and some breakfast cookies.

While sailing we have now spotted at least 3 buoys adrift, one of which we managed to pick up and which includes the lettering “EH6425” on it.

We jumped in the sea yesterday in the lighter winds (one at a time), and will be doing so again today.

Unlike our crossing from east to west, we have seen and heard quite a few other boats in the first days.

Right now we actually have a boat called “Caringa” (mmsi 211167510) 4 miles in front of us.

You probably can’t see them in the picture, but doesn’t the sea look awesome?!

We will probably be heading this way for some time now, before gradually curving east to stay below the Atlantic low-pressure systems.

Saga and Escapade are still somewhere northeast of us, and the others we know in the BVIs have not yet left.

Until next time!