Day 5
We are 765nm into our journey from the Cape Verde Islands to the Barbados, over a third done. We are throughly enjoying the trade wind sailing. The first 3 days saw us making over 150 miles per day, which is great for us. Day 4 was a slight let down as the wind lightened and our speed diminished, although we still made 128 miles which is not too shabby f. Today saw the wind strengthen and we once again are romping along at over 6.5 knots.
The fishing continues to be good, yesterday Barry had this beauty within gaffing distance when it gave a mighty heave and spit out the hook. 
To tell you the truth I was not sorry it got off the hook it was a magnificent looking fish. I was on watch at dawn today so I let out the line, about 0800 there was a jerk . We thought we had lost it but when I went to pull it in the fish was still there. This is probably one of the first fish I have caught aboard. Barry the seafood chef baked it up and we enjoyed it with rice and a cabbage and carrot salad mid afternoon.
Day 7
We are approaching the halfway point, we have gone 1003 miles and we have 1011nm to go. The wind and swell picked up yesterday, we have a double reefed Main with about half of the genoa poled out. The boat is scooting along at an average of 6.4 knots, any faster and she rounds up and staggers around and the sail flogs terribly so we are very happy with 6.4 average. We have had two boats show up on the AIS, th first he was about 100nm from Cape Verde and even though she was only 4.5 miles away we could not see her for the dust. The second one showed up last night and Barry spotted it in the dark before it showed up on the AIS. The only wildlife we have seen besides the fish we have caught and the flights of flying fish that pop up everywhere are two tropic birds. The were over 600 miles from land they circled the boat twice checking us out but did not land. We were hoping they would hitch a ride for a few miles. Barry had hidden a package of black licorice in his cubby so we broke it open last night and had a real treat. I bought some peanuts in the shell in Mindelo , little did I know they were raw. I shelled one package the other day and roasted them for awhile and put them in a vegetarian ground nut stew. I am going to roast the other package today and see if they will be good enough to snack on. We still have apples, oranges and a coconut as fresh fruits and lots of fresh veggies left.
It has been warm enough during the day we put up the bimini so we can have some shade, but the wind of the water keeps it cool. I think we can look forward to more wind and swell as we approach the Barbados, we will just keep rocking and rolling along.
