Our day started the same as yesterday; the last hour of Elaine’s watch, followed by Roy on the graveyard shift. Elaine’s off time seemed to fly by, though, and by 0400 she was back on duty, feeling like she’d only slept for a few minutes. Fortunately her first hour passed quickly, given that she had to keep an eye, from the helmstation, on a cargo ship crossing our bow, followed by another overtaking us to starboard, but at rather close range. Sitting at the helmstation in cooler conditions is not something we usually do, but it’s the first time we’ve had all of Paw Paw’s windows in the saloon, where our forward facing navigation station is, covered in dew. The condensation was so heavy we couldn’t see a thing. Another first!

Roy came back on watch around 0700, following which Elaine clearly needed a few extra hours of sleep, given that she only woke up at 1100, rather startled after thinking she’d fallen back to sleep instead of doing her watch.

Some fruit, a cup of tea and a few biscuits settled us into another day at sea before Roy checked the oil levels on both engines and saildrives. Weather he’d downloaded while Elaine enjoyed her beauty sleep, indicated that the winds would pick up later this evening. Fortunately, though, by noon they arrived, although not enough to switch off both engines, but we were happy to be motor-sailing on one engine, at least.

A surprise of this passage, though, has been the constant stream of cargo ships along this coast; it’s been endless, with numerous ships crossing our bow or passing port to port within a nautical mile of us and that after forcing us to alter course on more than one occasion.

The incessant inappropriate babble on the VHF radio has also continued; swearing, singing, burping, playing music, reciting the Quran, shouting out various derogatory phrases etc, an occurrence we’ve only ever experienced in this part of the world and can only conclude that there are some very immature individuals around here.

Before Roy’s first watch of the night after he’d enjoyed an afternoon nap and before Elaine’s bedtime, we phoned Elaine’s mom to sing Happy Birthday to her, much to her surprise and delight. Our timing was perfect since the rest of the family were participating on the Zoom Family Get-Together to mark the occasion, something we knew we’d miss, unfortunately, being on passage.

A very Happy Birthday to her and we wish her a fabulous day!

Under a waning gibbous we continue south, having passed the halfway mark around noon today.