Dear Dad

I was sitting on deck last night thinking about you as I gazed at the stars. There were several shooting stars which appeared as if by magic, sending good luck around the world.

Did you know that the closer you get to the equator you see a very different aspect of the moon. At home we see the moon in effect cut vertically in half and here it’s

Welcome to 23 degrees North

And here we are in the tropics with four days to go until we reach the opening in the doldrums that will let us pass with 5 to 7 knots of wind rather than zero, unless the weather Gods are playing a nasty trick.

So we’ve moved from an upwind sail with all white sails flying