Weak wind

Jean-Luc van den Heede struggles up African coast

Day 97. Position at 1300: 20°51'S / 2°50'E
Wind: 8 knots from SE. Slight sea.
Temperatures: day 21°C / night 15°C / sea 21°C
Distance covered in the last 24 hours: 218 miles.
To the finish: 5,302 miles.
Lead over Monnet: 26 days and 7 hours.

Hi there,

The sun has come back out again, but the wind is still weak. For the moment, apart from the first two days, my climb back up the Atlantic hasn't been that great. Perhaps my choice of cuddly toy for the day will encourage the trade winds to blow a little more strongly. With hardly 10 knots of wind from directly behind me, I'm having to come around every so often, as the 30 tonnes of Adrien certainly can't glide on the fabulous surf, like we did just after the Cape!

To relieve my impatience, I'm doing some tidying up, and I'm making some bread, which always takes me quite a while. I'm also busy reading, lying down on the Celerant staysail, in the shadow of my lightweight main spinnaker. I'm currently reading Terre et Ciel (Land and sky) by Théodore Monod, published by Actes Sud.

I did a little bit of washing with some leftover rainwater yesterday. I found that some of the warm socks, which I wore for a while in the forties were, with the heat, starting to stink up my cabin a little too much.

A large sea-bream might smell the wonderful aroma of fresh bread, mixed in with my smelly socks, and will perhaps be tempted to nibble at the bait that has been dragging on behind Adrien since yesterday. My landing net and the saucepan are ready.

See you tomorrow,

JL VDH

A day with Alizé's cuddly toy, a little pink lamb.