Monday 07 December

Monday 07 December - 1410 miles from Cape Verde Islands
This is absolutely beautiful sailing. The wind has dropped to force 4, about 15 kts, and it is directly behind us, pushing us at about 5 kts. A beautiful clear sky above and the ocean is peaceful. The boat just keeps going west. We don't touch anything. It is as if the boat has a mind of her own, and wants to go to the Caribbean. We are just riding along.
A surprise is that we have not seen much traffic out here. We have seen two ships, one of them directly behind us moving up. The AIS showed it would passclose on one side then the other. That means possible collision. At three miles it altered course and passed one mile on the stbd side. It amazes me that with as much ocean there is out here, that two craft can be in the same spot at the same time and run into each other. We have also seen three sailboats, in the 45 to 60 foot range, crossing our track from our stbd quarter (if a car the right back fender) passing us and going off to the left. These boats are going to an island south of us, probably St Lucia, and are probably boats from the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, ARC. 250 of them left The Canaries a week or so ago and all of them have to cross our track. I would love to see their tracks, and look at where we are, and see if any are coming close. You can do that on the internet.
From Will: "You are in the center of the fleet with more and more passing you both to your north and south. The boats are spread from 15-22 N Lat and some have reached St Lucia and they are spread east as far as 41 W Long. Follow this link and scroll over the viewing options at the top of the viewing pane and find the Lat/Lon overlay -www.worldcruising.com/arc/arc/eventfleetviewer.aspx "
If you get that far, our position is Lat 17degrees 30 minutes north, Long 50 degrees 00minutes west

Reef Early
Bill Doar
s/v Advent II