Day began for Shrimpy by the Skip piping him out of bed to land a fish which had amazingly taken a fancy to our lure.  On arrival at stern, fish had departed - not life but hook.  Breakfast of freshly baked bread, oven did work.

We then had to jerry rig a hand pump to pump water contaminated with diesel and water from washing crews underwear; unpleasant task!  To add a little more to the task in hand, Deputy Gunnery decided to throw one of our valuable (floor voids getting in) plungers into the depths!  Nav man with longer arms was dispatched, rather forcefully, by Gunnery to enter the dark void together with assurances that only the sweet smell of Skips underwear would emanate....they lie!

Another fish duly presented itself on our hook which was filmed in Technicolor, duly commented on and once again lost!  A good job we've still got lots of beans left .  Engineering department then constructed enormous gaff so that any other visiting fish could be invited on board.

After some discussion over lunch on how to stop the water jug landing on our laps, Engineering constructed and patented a water jug holder from part of a plastic crate.  Once again this did not meet with Skips approval! Not very DYL.

An hour spent surfing down waves in 30knot winds ended with a nasty noise in the rudder department.  This was deemed too important for Engineering to deal with and they were both asleep anyway!  Hopefully the problem has been eased/solved by the Foredeck crew tightening every bolt in sight.  Discovery's advice resembled most I. T. department's "switch it off and back on again".  Equanimity now restored by a cuppa and large slice of Granny Homan's Life Enhancing Fruit Cake. Thank you Margaret.

1645 - 1715 :  Just had a visit from a large family of dolphins (100 +), surfing our bow wave, diving out of the Atlantic swells and completing other forward and backward "showing off" manoeuvres. 

We have had our first position report concerning the other boats in the ARC fleet. So far we have passed or been passed by a couple of N-ARCs (Not in the ARC). We class ourselves as those who had got fed up with the ARC not leaving on time - we are either B-ARCs, S-ARCs or a Columbian guerilla movement. Either way, we are still nicely ahead of the rest of the pack - we did leave one day earlier than them after all - and it is good to see them struggling with light winds way behind us. The racers have blasted ahead. 

The evening closes with 4kg of spag bol and a pleasant 7.5knt broad reach with jib and main heading 260.

Love to all at home.