The moon must be about 90 percent full tonight. With a brilliantly clear sky it makes for bright conditions. We’ve seen Albatros/Shearwater family birds all day. Almost without fail they come to check out Sunny Spells with a couple of circuits and then head off. We also had four flying fish on deck this morning. We found them over the course of a couple of h and threw them overboard as we found them. Won’t be so wasteful tomorrow morning – they might make a good lunch!

Position 13° 22.946′ N 60° 47.320′ E
COG 278T
SOG 7.3kt

A measure of our progress is that the sunrise is noticeably later every morning. Having sailed west through 16 degrees of longitude, we’re due to make another 30 minute adjustment today to make a full hour time zone change since leaving Cochin.

Position 13° 14.213′ N 61° 59.374′ E
COG 279T
SOG 6.9kt

You know you’re moving into a different climate when you bring your dressing gown and doona out of retirement! We’ve spent the last 4 months between 10 degrees south and 10 degrees north, almost always sheltered by the land masses of south-east Asia. It’s been hot and humid, with the temperature in a very narrow band between 28 and 34 degrees. Sea surface temperatures have been just under 30 degrees throughout, further stabilising the ambient temperatures. That has all rapidly changed in the last couple of nights as we sailed west into the Arabian Sea and slowly edged north (now more than 13 degrees north). The NE monsoon is bringing cool winds off the snow capped mountains of Kashmir and Persia, making it a positively frosty 24 degrees last night. Djibouti is at 11 degrees 30 minutes north, so we will head south again once we turn into the Internationally Recognised Transit Corridor (IRTC) north of Socotra. Expecting night time temperatures to continue dropping as we close the land masses of the Middle East.

Position 13° 14.213′ N 61° 59.374′ E
COG 279T
SOG 6.9kt

wind NE 12, seas 1m NNE. Made 167nm for the 24 h. Wind progressively eased after midnight to about 10 knots just before sunrise. Messy confused sea remains and we have too little sail up to damp the motion. Motor-sailing now to lift batteries.

Position 13° 13.533′ N 62° 06.344′ E
COG 276T
SOG 6.8kt
Log 8,670 nm
Engine 143.0 h