At Sea - On route to Madeira

Hello Everyone,

Well we have once again settled into a way of life here, sleeping, keeping watch, meals (prepared with difficulty as we are now constantly on a lean), reading and the boys playing backgammon. We are unable to travel in a direct route to Madeira (NE) as the wind is directly ahead, so we are going north-west for a few days. Our route is pointing to somewhere between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland which is a bit disconcerting. As a result, the distance to our destination has also not decreased very much and we are only 60nm closer to Madeira than when we left almost two days ago! Nevertheless, when we turn east, the distance should decrease rapidly. So far the Atlantic has been much quieter than the Indian and we have not seen any ships for many days. There are also few sea birds out here and we have not seen dolphins, although we still see the occasional flying fish. These should also decrease in number as we go further north into cooler latitudes. We are now at 19 degrees N and the nights are getting cooler. Once we reach 22 degrees north we will be out of the tropics and into early spring proper. Madeira is at 32 degrees N, the same latitude as Sydney is to the south. Lisbon is 38 degrees north, much further north than the Cape of Good Hope is to the south (34d S) so it would be quite cool there at the moment. Hopefully when we get to Lisbon at the beginning of May it should be a bit warmer than it is now. 
This morning it is cloudy. It was very pretty seeing the sunrise - the rays of sunshine were streaking through a small gap in the clouds, turning a small patch of the grey sea silver in the distance.
Bye for now. 

Arti & Dimitri