People who know me will attest to my sartorial vagueness, but I've been taking quite a bit of stick from the crew on this trip due to the recent addition of a djellaba to my wardrobe. Now I maintain that its the perfect thing to wear on the boat during the day - loose, airy and keeps me out of the sun. The crew think its hilarious and keep calling me Ali Baba. I think its time for some old fashioned plank walking!

The jovial mood has returned with the wind, which started to fill in after dark last night. No longer are we drifting along at 2 knots, but we hammering along at 7 or 8, and surfing higher. The end is in sight (if you can call 775nm 'in sight'), and the rum punches are calling. Derek and Mandy are en-route to Antigua and it is absolutely fantastic that they'll be there when we arrive.

Once the wind started to fill in, we put the parasailor up and its been up ever since - and we've not need to trim it at all. It definitely suites our 'lazy' style of cruising. Looking towards the weekend, the wind may get up too much for the sail - but we're hoping that we may be able to fly it from now until we cross the line just off Charlotte Point.

Everyone is now pretty good with the parasailor - and have been taking turns on night watch without needing any assistance from me. We're continuing with our 3 set watch periods overnight. I'm covering from dinner until 10pm, Anthony doing 10pm-1am, Amanda 1am-4am then Barry 4am-7am. I'm back up by around 6am working the HF to get GRIBs and emails, as well as getting the kettle on for the first cuppa. Its working very well for us, as its suiting people's normal sleeping patterns. I tend to sleep in the pilot berth in the saloon if we're flying the parasailor, to be on hand if needed - but its probably not required anymore. Any clock changes are done during the day so as not to penalise someone on night watch.

Last night, both Anthony and Barry saw the lights of another vessel. This is the first time since the Monday after we left Lanzarote that we've seen another vessel! We knew it was empty out here, but we didn't think it was quite that empty! So you can imagine the excitement that two vessels in one night caused! One was a tanker that we also saw on AIS - the other wasn't a sailing vessel, but we couldn't see enough to be sure of what it was.

On the fishing front, others in the fleet report landing some nice fish. We've not had any luck - we've lots lures and are now resorting to the marigold lure in the hope it will get us something. We also have one remaining squid lure. We're putting both out just before dawn and reeling them in just after dark. Another fish would be lovely - we have plenty of freezer space now!

For now, we'll continue pushing west fast - aiming to cross 3 degrees per day. That would be nice.