The Moon

Hi All
 
It feels like BTP is finally getting away from the light wind area that we have been stuck in for 36 hours and beginning to move. Boat speed is now hitting between 10 and 14 knots and I have the big Kingdom of Bahrain spinnaker and full mainsail flying and the boat is once again slicing through the blue, sparkling waters, almost on course for the corner of Brazil.
 
The night before last, I finally reached the end of the road on the pulse of wind that carried me all the way from Staten Island in Patagonia. I had been following close behind a ridge of high pressure and it decided to stop off Montivedeo, in Uruguay and form into a bigger high pressure. I almost made it through the calm in the middle to the other side, but not quite and that allowed Dee to catch me up - then she arrived at the wall and slowed. Arnaud on Akenas had dropped off the back of the 100 mile wide pulse of wind on the day before and was rapidly enveloped in another high behind, so could not catch up. Now I hope to wriggle out of this high and make up some of the distance on Dee as I exit into the better breezes.
 
So, for 2 nights and a day have been making slow progress out of the high pressure and hoping that it would not expand to trap me further. It may have been slow, but the seas were relatively flat and the skies not squally so it was smooth progress, but with a lot of sail trimming necessary to keep the boat moving.
 
At night the heavens were thick with stars and if I took a nap, I would sleep in the cockpit to feel the movements of the boat better. One night I lay on a sailbag on deck with the binoculars and the boat was calm enough to study the galaxies of the Clouds of Magellan, and thousands of stars.
 
Last night I was going particularly slowly and I had not had a position report and, as usual, you imagine that your nearest rival is catching you up because you are going slowly. I was steering and I saw a light on the starboard side, looking just like a yacht with its spinnaker illuminated and I thought that was Dee for about a entire minute, until that tiniest sliver of faint crescent shape rose even higher on the horizon and I could see I had been duped by the moon playing its best party trick. I have been fooled in the past, but only for a second, so this was the moon in its most subtle disguise yet! 
 
During the light winds I spent a good deal of time in the suitcase sized space at the back of the boat, working on the Fleet 77 communication device and managed to get it working! This is fantastic news to be able to download accurate weather off the boat and for uploading images for the website. It was a good moment in the race to hear the dome at the back whirr into life like R2D2 and then to log on find out what was happening in the weather around me.
 
So now looking at a couple of days of faster sailing to take BTP to the latitude of Rio and I hope to be making up some decent distance on Safran and Roxy ahead. So the story of the Vendée continues with its ever changing twists and turns - watch this space!
 
Water temp is 21.4 degrees at 3338N 4026W. The pair of Albatross that followed me for so long were turned back by the warmer waters and lighter winds, so I have had just a few fleeting visits from other, smaller seabirds that have been not so loyal. That is the end of the Antarctic wildlife, but the start of the tropics again, and new varieties of life in and above the sea to be seen.
 
Ciao
 
Brian