19.13S 164.20W Wednesday 4^th June – early hours.  The engine temperature alarm which we installed in Lanzarote went off at 3.00am yesterday morning – not a sound you welcome when you are in the middle of an ocean passage six hundred miles from any reasonable expectation for marine services!  This part of the journey which we have so nonchalantly embarked upon is actually half the distance we covered crossing the Atlantic and the equivalent of crossing the Bay of Biscay three times! 

The boys tracked down the problem to the fresh water cooling pump bearings – which for some reason are shot – could it be we overcooked the engine pushing too hard getting out of the last pass?   We don’t have a spares kit on board so we are monitoring the cooling system on an hourly basis to make sure we don’t overheat again whilst topping up the header tank as we go along.  We have radioed the fleet in Rarotonga but even though the Perkins engine shares the same bearings as most tractors and trucks there were no spares there – and very unlikely we will find any in Niue – our next hope will be Tonga.

We weren’t really expecting the doldrums and the thought of hand steering all night again was too much so Bennett set about mending the auto pilot – the offending belt which we removed two days ago is usually coated in French chalk and we think that during one of our wave slapping experiences it got soaking wet and got clogged up. Bennett asked me if he could borrow my talcum powder as a substitute – I gave him my most withering look – what self respecting woman goes to sea with a tub of talc?  He had to settle for athlete’s foot powder – which worked a dream - so we are safe in the knowledge that there is now no likelihood of any fungal growth in our steering system!

What small amount of wind we had today was from the south east so we put the twistle rig up this morning for the first time in ages - but by the time it was erected in all its glory – the 4 knot wind had moved to the north so the whole lot had to be brought down again……. There are two more vicious weather fronts forecast and predictions for more of the resulting convergent zones we have just experienced, where you get incredible wind acceleration and confused conditions, so we are anxious to put the miles behind us and reach safer waters……. therefore the engine is running and we are chugging along in calm seas at around 4.5 knots plus half a knot of favourable tide. The benefits of running the engine include topped up batteries and the water maker keeping the tanks full.  The tow gen is piling in the amps and all things considered the systems are working well…….