Position: 15:47.208N 037:49.822W

Tom opened the coolbox this morning and got a strong smell of ethanol dioxide. Now I had never heard of ethanol dioxide before never mind smell it and it sounds like a dangerous kind of thing, maybe explosive but at least something that would choke you to death. He must have noticed the twitching of my face as he quickly explained. Bananas when kept in an airtight container give off ethanol dioxide. This causes them all to ripen together and can cause everything else on board to ripen too. Relieved I moved the bananas from their new home of only 24 hours and we have been eating bananas since. Baking, boiling, frying. Putting the bananas in there was not a good idea. As skipper all good ideas are mine bad ideas are someone elses.

We changed ships time this morning and someone missed the bus for work. Who it was is unclear as we are all beginning to look alike, bearded and sweating like a picket outside a Gilette Factory in the tropics. Ursula is easier to spot as her beard is shorter and neater. Odd dreams are also common among us, usually helping to attribute some mundane reason for the fact that you are braced against a bulkhead in sleep and clutching the bunk to control your pitching. These dreams will usually have a maritime or apple tart theme. Last nights crew example was being in a four wheel drive travelling to Dingle to see off Tim Severin on the Brendan Voyage and hitting every pothole. In the dream the dreamer turns to me to ask why we are undertaking this wretched journey and I explain that it is our duty as one Atlantic sailor to another.

Our auto pilot started to make a strange noise during the day and we decided to lift part of the cockpit sole to investigate before dark. Unfortunately a part seems to have disappeared and there is a gap of about a quarter of an inch where it meets the steering. We took it apart and with some of it upside down, 6 cable ties and a good lashing of line it seems to be holding temporarily. The loss of autopilot would have a big impact on the rest of the voyage. Shifts would have to drop to two hours and two to s shift as one could do nothing else but steer.

At dinner time I checked our positioin and we had reached the 1400 mile mark, our half way position. No sooner had I announced this to the crew than the boat started to heel violently. We all went on deck to reef and within minutes we were up to 48kts of wind. In trying to get the third reef down we ran into some difficulties and had to drop the main to sort out the problems. We were sailing then with the smallest scrap of headsail but making 7 kts downwind. We decided to leave the mainsail, tackle it in daylight, stay on our down wind course running from the storm and keep our watches from below deck. This put us off course by 30 degrees but with 6 m waves none of us minded that. We were of to Rio again.

Ursula had held the speed record of 8.8 kts but Jeanot broke it during this foray when he hit 10.4.

Below on watch it is much more difficult to stay alert, you cannot feel the boat as much and the elements warnings are delayed. We stick our heads out the companion way for a good luck around every fifteen minutes. This feels like an Irish Coffee with your body in the warm and humid environment of the cabin and your head in the salty chilled spray above.

I have never seen a sea like this. It is grey and streaked with white and as we run down wind it chases us not like yesterday but more like a long serpent lashing a spittle ridden tongue at our stern. Again though our little fragile fortress punches above her weight and despite the pitching and rolling we feel somewhat safe between the starts of falling off an anti social wave or having a giant, salty and hard boot stomp down on our coach roof.

This is the celebration of our halfway point. Not exactly what was expected.

Cerys bumbles along in the night

With her nav lights shining so bright

The furling gear broke

We have run out of coke

And we turned left when we should have turned right