What's in a name?

So far on this trip, we have visited Port Elizabeth, passed by Matthew Town and rounded James Point. What did those ancient pioneering mariners that first named these shores have against me?

The wind has continued to drop and the seas remain resolutely flat despite the fact that we are running the east coast of Eleuthera Island and so are exposed to the full brunt of the Atlantic. In fact, the wind was so light yesterday afternoon that we actually flew the spinnaker. This was its first airing since December and the poor thing was still sopping wet in its bag. We were pleased that Dave and Ollie had left us a little gift when they last packed it in the Atlantic – I lifted the spinnaker bag to reveal a small and rather smelly flying fish stuck to it. We dropped the spinnaker in the night and stuffed it into the saloon to pack in the morning, and now the whole boat smells somewhat fishy.

We've noticed that many commercial vessels do not alter course until quite close to us so we hailed a passing cruise ship to ask for details on our returns. They had a "strong radar return" at 7nm but did not pick up our AIS until 5nm, despite us picking them up from about 20nm. I suppose it is a low power limitation of the Class B non-commercial device fitted to yachts, and this reduced transmission range would also help explain our rather erratic position fixes on the AIS website.

It seems to be cruise ship central here with convoys of the things heading south past us, out of Nassau I presume. We've not seen any more yachts since George Town. Under 260nm to run to Canaveral so we're expecting to arrive daytime Wednesday and are currently on a reach powering along at 8kt, but we suspect we may end this passage with 24 hours with the engine.