It is 4:30am and I have just taken over the watch from Susan, when she mentioned a strange noise. It was different to the creaky sound coming from the interior furnishing of the boat, which synchronises with the rythm of the waves and boats’ heeling and you simply ignore after a while.

While taking a closer look with the headlamp, I found a flying fish on the cockpit floor fighting for his life. These poor looking creatures leave a bit of a mess with descaling after landing and oozing some mucus while also spreading some stinky smell. I don’t like them, hardly accept them outside the cockpit but get annoyed, if they come too close. On the photo, which I will add once we have WiFi again, you can see the flying wings still foldet out, trying to take off again, but no chance.

Once the wings are folded in, you know, this creature will not thrash around anymore once you pick it up and throw it back into their living environment, now becoming their graveyard. The whole process from flip to fold in takes around one minute, I would guess. I have a flexible gripper arm, about 90cm long, which helps me often to fish fallen things out of hidden places in the boat they have fallen in while doing boat work. Very useful tool, also in terms of getting rid of flying fish without touching them at all.

There is also some traffic out here again. This time not fishing boats but one commercial vessel passing by heading east and, believe it or not, SY Geronimo (MMSI 244620501) sailing along in 4nm distance north from us heading west.

Visibility is good, so we can also see their navigational lights clearly. Obviously with 20m length they are faster than us and will get sooner to a cold drink at the beach bar but vice versa have less time to enjoy the ocean. It’s a choice, to some extend. Geronimo, what a coincident.
 
We have started yesterday to read “The Doyle – Martinique to Grenada” and you won’t believe how excited we got while browsing through this excellent cruising guide. A mixture of travel guide and nautical almanach, perfect for sailors. Tons of useful information, which will help us to plan the upcoming weeks within this area. It will be a different world to us not only from the sailing point of view. We look forward to explore this area by boat and bike absorbing the caribbean lifestyle.
 
We have moved one timezone west and are now in Fernando de Noronha Standard Time. It is an archipelago off the Brazilian coast at the very eastern tip of South America, actually closer to us than Martinique but we better keep going. 270° west rather 180° south. The hour time difference does not mean much to us. We have not adjusted the clocks. Time is much less relevant out here. UTC timing is more important not to miss my daily chat with Jan on the Marine Radio.
 
We look now forward towards another pleasant and relaxed day at sea.
 
Fair winds…