The nearest humans

Position 0700/28th 0602 02227 trip 3222 =128/24 and about 44 degrees south of Falmouth = 2640 miles

Midnight to 3 watch again – big Turneresque moon in and out of the clouds with Jupiter in tow – gentle fluctuations in the wind but mostly heading south in a SW gradient – not at all in tune with the GRIBWeather files. Graphics in Binary file: GRIB files associate a specific weather datum (eg wind velocity or atmospheric pressure) with a geographic position. Because the resulting file is a collection of these points they are extremely small and so ideal over slow links such as sailmail. prediction. KevvoStainless steel self steering device, built by Kevin Fleming, used on Berrimilla and countless others driving, taking us all over the ocean to keep the wind in the sails. We're in almost the narrowest part of the Atlantic where we were visited by that lovely cattle egret 4 years ago. I've always hoped that it made it to Africa, where it seemed to be heading.

Two aircraft on reciprocal courses, one way high heading SW towards S America the other much lower heading NE for W Africa. They passed each other and us at the same time. Different lives! I wonder who they were, those 600 or so people and what they would make of this little barge below them. Then there was a ship, lit up like Nan Jing Dong Lu that we passed about a mile south of – seemed big, but probably fishing – we're over the Sierra Leone Bank here which might be significant.

Otherwise, nowt to report. Just idle thoughts wafting in and out of the wheelie bin. We are well inside the last BU to the Equator and then almost another one until we catch up with the sun. Will be good to be back in some consistent weather.

And at 0620, still dark, still in SW wind making about 150M. Odd – ought to be way into SE by now. GRIBWeather files. Graphics in Binary file: GRIB files associate a specific weather datum (eg wind velocity or atmospheric pressure) with a geographic position. Because the resulting file is a collection of these points they are extremely small and so ideal over slow links such as sailmail. in half an hour. I don't remember this bit from last time – which side of Martin Vaz did we go, I wonder – theoretically at the southern edge of the tradesBands of NW and SW winds either side of the equator that blow with more or less constant speed and direction all year. at 20 S and our first southern hemisphere waypointA fixed location with specified latitude and longtitude co-ordinates maintained by GPS. We were heading for 45 south that time, rather than Cape Town.

Carol, your cake almost got us to the Equator – thanks! Pauline, we've just unwrapped yours.