Bom dia amigos! A local greeting from off the coast of Brazil! This is the fourth consecutive day of sailing and we currently have seven squares and three ‘handkerchiefs’ set. Today, being Sunday, we started the day with a very nice service on the foredeck led by our Scottish 1st Engineer, Alan and with accompaniment on the violin by 2nd Engineer Tamsin. As is tradition, there was no Happy Hour today so, as you can imagine, everyone was particularly ‘Happy’! Instead, Ronan opened the Shop and we are all now kitted out with Lord Nelson fashion items. Today’s weather started quite calmly with a little light cloud. However, we now have a full range of cloud formations around us and are benefitting in our watch from the knowledge and expertise of Roman, who is a professional meteorologist. The swirling winds have brought the seabirds much closer to the ship and we have been accompanied by an albatross, shearwaters and a petrel. Then suddenly, as we sailed under a vast cumulus cloud, we saw our first four frigate birds, soaring high on the currents, which was a great spectacle. Graham is disappointed to observe that we have not yet encountered any sparrows.

However, he is bravely attempting to overcome this current setback by enthusiastically cleaning all the brass, of which there is a great deal, both on the bridge and in the deck-house. The permanent crew are both amazed and delighted by his diligence and success and the rest of the watch are enjoying the reflected glory of his work! CB, our distinguished watch leader, is currently on mess duty so Kate is standing in for her for 24 hours. Big excitement, we have just been visited simultaneously by not only the first dolphin of this voyage (spotted by Chris and Kay), which swam alongside and then dived under the ship. As we were looking for it to emerge, we were amazed to see, just under the surface, a Southern Right Whale dolphin. As Roman said, he is better at spotting wildlife than big ships! The sun has now come out and there are patches of blue sky again – hooray! So, that’s all for now from the “A Star” Watch: Kay, Graham, Roman,

Chris, CB and Kate