The advantage: we travel much easier on Tuesday. We have about 900 nautical miles ahead of us, and since out route crosses the tropical convergent zone which presents you with all sorts of things, but never with reliable winds, we decide to travel south for a while and only set the southwesterly course towards Galapagos behind the island Malpelo. In the end it turned out to be a good decision, because, on this stretch that most other people could only cover using engine power, we still found nice sailing winds most of the time. We did a lot of sail-manipulation though, to use the wind as best as possible.

Apart from that the crossing is rather calm, leaving us lots of time to read and to enjoy the stars at night.

We encounter a total of three ships during this week. The beautiful school of dolphin that visits us, and the chat with an American border-control airplane (did they get lost?), are the highlights of this week.

And not one fish biting - not even one tired sardine. Seems like all fish are gone, on holiday, because there's nothing happening at the fishing rod - even though it's been in the water since sunrise.

Whether or not that changes during the next week is something you can read up about, here.

Until then, take care

Tom & Nela