Another complete change last night with the wind dying away to almost nothing and the boat clanking around like a cement factory. This sadly kept Jock and mike awake. We also ran out of electricity since the quite magnificent Duogen could not generate enough power to keep the Autohelm and instruments going. So it was a rough night for all. The wind picked up as dawn approached and the boat went back to going along at 5.5 knots. It’s early afternoon as I send this and we have the spinnaker up going 6.5 knots so with luck we might average out at what we need. Jock is on the helm – he’s damn good at it.

I think I‘ve cracked coaxing the water maker into life when we need it. The problem is that air gets in through the sea water intake which should have been fitted further back. Jim Macdonald of Mactra who supplied it has been incredibly helpful by phone and e-mail. It’s not his fault that it was wrongly fitted! I gather air can be a problem with these contraptions (our friends on Moondancer – 202 have experienced it too). Anyway we have a work around which means avoiding use of the computerised control panel and make water ‘manually’ - a technical term, not me pumping at 7 b.a.r.!

Apart from a few potatoes and onions the veg has now all gone and very little went to waste. Incredible when you think it was delivered to the boat 2 weeks ago and left unchilled. We had our last aubergine yesterday. I did something very special with it including making my own breadcrumbs! The fruit had held up too. We had our last pineapple yesterday and still have oranges, grapefruit and apples.

 Mike continues to make his excellent ‘Pain de Verde’ (an ‘in’ joke in case you missed an earlier edition) every other day. He asks me to send his best wishes to all at Charles Taylor Consulting. I must say that fresh bread at this stage of the trip is a real God Send.

Talking of which I have decided that this organ needs a day of rest tomorrow, Sunday. I might even get to finish Erskine Childers ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ which I am much enjoying in snatches. And the 5* Su Doku needs lots of my attention!!

Delicious or what -and no lesson from Jamie Oliver!                            Mike -'The Loaf' - almost on a par with my efforts

More next week…