On 21^st April the weather was tropical showers and hard on the NNE wind I caught a nice fat skipjack Tuna and was just starting to eat when a storm came out of nowhere and drenched me and the meal, I am unable to recommend rain as sauce for fish especially for tuna. The boat was now at a heel of 25 degrees for 10 days and nights. First I passed through a very busy shipping lane from south of the Cape Verde Islands to South America that was over 50 miles wide and with no clear separation zones. I will have to fit a radar detector before starting the next leg which crosses the main Europe to US shipping lanes. At 19.27 hrs. on 28^th April 2008 at 15 54.1 N and 36 12.9 W we crossed our outward track thus technically completing the circumnavigation
The boat was taking water in steadily  and every 4 hours the bulges had be dried out. I was starting to suffer from a bad stomach caused by the rough motion of the boat, having to lie down so much, the lack of decent food as even boiling water was dangerous and the tank water full of debris which has been shaken off the bottom. The electric tiller pilot got broken when it got thrown cross the cockpit leaving me with only windvane steering which is no good if you motor. So I was pleased to have a quiet day on the 1^st of May. It was glass calm at times making it easy to sort out the poor old boat. Unfortunately this was the end of the good progress and I settled down to a long slow slog through the horse latitudes so called because in the very old days the mariners were often reduced to eating any horses on board, this probably meant all other meat was finished including the ships cat.
6^th May  started flat calm so I had a swim and decided to scrape off the worst of the Goose necked barnacles on the hull. The water was lovely and the exercise  was a tonic. At 18.00 the wind was enough to drive Cariad at 2.0 knots and by 20.00 we were  doing 4.5 with a wind that was of trade type but was pushing us way to the west and it looked like I would be over 40 degrees west before I get to 25 north, well I could get no tighter to the wind. At  4.00 am I crossed the 23 degree 27 minute latitude which is the tropic of Cancer and out of the tropics for the last time on this voyage. At daylight there was a massive jet stream sitting north-east to south-west and my course was almost north at last.
The furthest west I was pushed was 39 degrees 20 minutes on the 7^th May then during 8^th was just able to make a touch east of north, when suddenly at around midnight the wind started to turn into the south and by dawn on the 9^th I was wing on wing and the barometer dropping 1 or 2 millibars. Was I passed the centre of the high pressure at only 27 degrees north??
The answerer was yes but at 23.00 hrs. on 10^th a nasty little squall came in and as it passed  the wind turned 180 degrees, as I was removing the spinnaker pole when the foresail wrapped around the inner forestay and as I unwound it the sail tore. It’s an old sail and the sun has rotted it. Shut down till dawn then put up the second jib and started tacking to windward. The high pressure had moved north and west leaving me where I was 4 days ago and my stomach giving me trouble again as it’s not used to the poor diet I’ve been on lately (all meat and carbohydrates). Very slow progress on the 11^th eventually finding the wind at 18.00 hrs  then 2 to 3 knots of boat speed  during the night.
The 12^th was very slow, but the 13^th was almost no wind at all so I motored for 9 hours to cross where the chart shows a shipping lane then during the morning of the 14^th the wind came giving 2 to 3 knots of boat speed and we got 68 miles in the day.
It was at this time that the tummy trouble started in Ernest and was quite debilitating. I eventually put it down to the eggs I had taken on in Ascension and with only Rennie’s tablets to overcome the Listeria/Salmonella it was a hard time.
The evening of the 14^th and morning of the 15^th were quite different weather with a good breeze from the north-west, 113 miles in the day and only 465 to go. But it was the end of the lovely days just cloud and north Atlantic clag. The poor weather continued and my stomach kept playing up , but we put in another 100 miles. Then on the night of the 16^th the wind went quite contrary with only 46 miles in the day and lots of tacking and ships about. So at 16.00 on the 17^th I put the engine on and motored for 2 hours and found an easterly breeze that kept us going at 4 knots all night. Sometimes motoring just a short distance can significantly improve the wind. We made slow but steady progress on the 18^th and  19 th but ships kept appearing out of all directions as they skirted around and through the Azores Islands, small fishing boats also started to appear so I knew the Islands where close bye. The 20^th was very slow and tantalizingly close to Horta which I could not see then as it got dark I saw the lights of Horta town and Pico Island 12 miles away I travelled another 7 miles and hove too and went bed, getting up at 5.00 and sailing into Horta Marina at 8 am after 42 days at sea.

Tony