shave and clean clothes, followed by a good breakfast, improved matters considerably and I relaxed in the cockpit with a mug of fresh coffee enjoying the lovely tradewinds. The wind fluctuated in strength throughout the day, and I was kept busy with the reefing lines in between checking for wear and tear. The evening meal was enjoyed in the cockpit, lit by a fine sunset. Just before dawn I carried out one of my regular AIS checks and made a sweep of the horizon before returning below. Half an hour later I woke again feeling uneasy, There was nothing on the AIS, but when I went on deck I was alarmed to see a large merchantman passing about 400m astern. I had clearly sailed close across her bow. The AIS alarm sounded and I found that there was now an image on the screen, which stayed there until the vessel was six miles away, then disappeared again. I later checked all the connections to the AIS and found them in order. So a lesson learned: be on deck at dawn and dusk when ships’ lights are indistinct, and don’t assume they’ll have their AIS switched on! We enjoyed a fast sail all day under a grey sky, passing the second imaginary waypoint 450 miles out from Antigua. I had broken down the passage into manageable chunks so that I would have regular ‘wins’ to celebrate – it was a boost to move on to waypoint 3. There was no sunset, and by dusk visibility was less than five miles. The breeze dropped to force 3 and began to fluctuate, so that during the night I came on deck to find us heading northwest and twice almost due east, so I was kept busy with sail alterations and adjusting the self-steering. Tradewind sailing at its best
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