20th

I’m running downwind, OBVIOUSLY. Couldn’t it just blow properly, as forecasted, once in a while? Why does it have to be me? I have never struggled so hard with sails in my life.
The wind blows from different directions, once from the east and then again from the south-east or north-east. Once it’s 5 knots, and then increases up to 15, just to calm down completely to 0 after a while. Sometimes the sea doesn’t move at all and sometimes there is a current. It goes like that, on and on. I couldn’t even dream of a better lesson of sailing and patience… Setting the sails is not easy (I have to be careful not to pull the boom out :). Unfortunately, the halyard keeps catching on the extra steps on the mast, and the reef pendant got tangled, and there is a problem with the capstan, which I have covered and can’t fully turn the handle around… You have to slave away at that (but when I grow up I will buy myself this short handle for kabestan and I will be the man.)
It’s a shame I don’t have enough fuel to push it forward a little bit. With such progress, right next to the African coast, at the harbour entry I will have to face the change of the front and very strong counter-current Aquallas. I may be in trouble. 

The Indian Ocean… for me, the most whimsical and demanding from all of them and at the same time the most beautiful…