20th July

It has been cooler yesterday and today with quite a bit of cloud cover.  He saw a whale surface 3 times, and a pod of dolphins cavorted around him while he was having breakfast. Yesterday the wind picked up and he made good time, reaching 6 to 7 knots.  The downside is that the sea also picked up and one wave slapped against the side of the hull, dumped into the cockpit and down the hatch so he had some bailing out to do.  

But he had tough night.  He was close to the coast, the wind died and he had lots of ships all around him.  And something on his self steering broke so he had to helm all the time unless he could get the boat balanced to sail unaided.  He didn't get any sleep last night.  At about 7.00 in the morning he furled the sails and went to sleep.  He drifted south a bit, east a lot, north and then south again for an hour an and a half before he woke.

Today he is going along the south coast of Sao Miguel, there is a bit more wind and lots of sport fishing boats and whale/dolphin watching tourism boats.  At one stage a lot of dolphin watchers were heading in his direction and the dolphins were too.  They surfaced all around him and he was surrounded by the whale watchers.

He has manufactured a "jury rig" for this self steering and pumped it full sika flex which he hopes will hold till he gets home.

The break

The fix

But the wind is really light, to non existent.  Tonight he is going around in circles waiting for the wind to fill in