30 January: Cape to Rio, day 15

I have been keeping an eye on the phosphor in the water since our departure and was looking forward to seeing the abundance of it in the Atlantic. I was disappointed not to see as much of it as I expected…until last night, when I realised I was there all the time. I had just not been looking correctly. While looking for other boats off the stern, I saw the phosphor that was illuminated by the drag over the rudder. That was more like it. It was so prevalent that when you pee’d (yes we don’t use the heads for that) off the stern, each drop hitting the water would illuminate. I can only compare it to the plants in the movie Avatar.

This morning I noticed a couple of screws loose on the spinnaker boom. Leroy, or Spiderman as I like to call him by now, went along the spin boom to screw them in. I got some great pics. He then took some photos from the tip of the spin boom. Also came out nice.

The wind died this afternoon. We went from 7.5kts with the asymmetrical spinnaker to two sails and eventually the wind died. We were tempted by some light gusts and a bit of wind 200m off, but everything quickly disappeared. Now we try and keep ourselves busy with other things to keep our mind off this frustrating situation. Prodigy should finish tonight. City of Cape Town is about 300nm from the finish and we have about 700nm to do. It is critical that we get wind soon, or Prodigy will beat us on Handicap. We need to be at the finish approx 4 days after Prodigy to beat them. At this rate it is looking bleak.

Leroy went for a swim this afternoon with Hans’ waterproof camera and took some pics of the boat. I haven’t seen them yet, but they must look good.

We have had another heads blockage incident. I went overboard and tried to unclog the pipe from the outside, but no luck. So tomorrow we will be taking the system apart…again :( While swimming, I was amazed at the visibility! It was like swimming in mineral water, it was that clear.

As we watch the sun set, we can only wait for the wind. Hopefully some wind will fill in after midnight. So we are doing 1.5hour solo shifts due to the lack of wind. This gives everyone more time to sleep.