Firefly, 30 November, 2001
23° 51 N 28° 55 W
Distance to St Lucia 1,907 miles

Last night was one to remember. There was not a cloud in the sky, the moon was full, glinting on the wavetops and I lay back and wondered at the huge panapoly of the heavens. Or something like that anyway.

All of a sudden something slippery and wet hit me in the chest. Gave me quite a fright it did. But not half as much a fright as when I turned the torch onto ‘it’ and saw not a flying fish, but a purply pink, squirming, six inch long squid, like something out of Alien.

Mindful that he might have a very big brother down there, I carefully ladled him back into the sea where, no doubt, he will be prey to the next passing dorado, which Stewart is even now thinking about catching as he gets his deep water fishing gear together.

Flying squid! Have I been at sea for too long?

As for other sea life there has been precious little around, a few sea birds and very briefly a couple of nights ago, a school of tiny dolphins.

Right now we’re steering about 232 Mag, low on the course but the best we can do at the moment. Hopefully, though we’ll make this up when we find the Trades. Currently we have about 15 knots of breeze and are making about 7 knots. We have now had three noon to noon runs of over 180 miles, though today will probably be slower. No sign of other yachts bar one spotted on the horizon yesterday.

One drama we overheard was the evacuation of a sick crew member from ‘Heaven can Wait’. They were due to rendezvous with a container ship and transfer him yesterday afternoon, though we did not hear whether this had been successful.