Yesterday, we converted our saloon into an artists work shop. The boys have been serious about the message in a bottle. Both of them wanted to give the finder a glimpse into our daily life on board. Joni was drawing Moya in all details, mast, sails, deck saloon, windows, solar panels, wind vane, us in Moyas belly and fish in the ocean, nothing to be missed. Joshua was rather drawing Robinson Island, a wale jumping from a huge wave under a rainbow. Afterwards, we were cutting letters from coloured paper and created the message, before it finally went into the bottle and was sealed by the captain.

Despite sailing slowly, the bottle was out of sight soon after the boys posted their message - 700, 800 and 900 miles away from the Arabic Peninsula, India and Africa, respectively. “Who’s gonna find it?” Joshua wanted to know and was listening hard as we went through the options: We are close to the equatorial current. If the message hits it, it will be carried to the African coast. Somebody from Somalia or Kenya might find it there, or it might be carried further. Passing Madagascar into the Mozambic channel and further south with the strong Agulhas current to South Africa or even around the cape of good hope into the Atlantic Ocean. Alternatively, it might hit the easterly currents of the roaring forties for another oceans crossing until Australia’s western coast. Or, ... options are endless, and all good, but one, namely that the bottle finds its fortune in one of the garbage belts on land or sea. We would be happy to receive your bet when the message will be found in the comments section. The winner closest to the real reception date will get a small present (if the message will not arrive, we’ll loose all).

Ocean currents might be negligible at the first glance. However, the slightest one is easily increasing to a knot or so. At a traveling speed of 5 knots and a 2200nm mile passage, a 1 knot current means arriving after 15 or 23 days, depending on whether is flowing from the aft or onto the bow. That probably explains why we are sometimes zickzacking not only for favourable wind but also current. Tonight all forecast have been in vane, we’d hit an easterly current with one digit winds at the same time. We barely moved resulting in a disappointing etmal (distance of the last 24h) of only 76 miles. But the skies are blue!