18.36N 47.48W  Oh happy day! What a ‘land’ of such contrasts!  We are becalmed! I know I am a heathen but how wonderful to be in the middle of a flat calm sea with the sun shining down and no wind!!  

What a weird sensation  it is – 800 miles from land and no wind! In fact as I speak we are drifting backwards!!  At around midnight last night (Sunday) with my watch coming up but first making a cup of tea - it was a pitch black night, still, with millions of stars – the moon not rising for another hour or so - a yacht to our far right and one to our far left – the sea completely still and oily black. I could see lightening far away on the horizon.  A strange green coloured flare or shooting star streaking across the sky…..and the yacht lolloping from side to side…… it felt vulnerable somehow not to be moving so we put the engine on and just ticked it over as we clawed our way along through the night – it  does charge the fridges and batteries so is not wasted energy.. ….. but it was a long night hand steering the boat hour after hour without our Happy Wanderer’s help (no wind) and our electronic auto pilot broken – you go quite dizzy trying to keep the boat on course.

None of the fleet has wind so not much progress made by many but some have enough diesel to motor and three yachts are within a couple of days of arrival in Antigua (whereas Big Blue only left Lanzarote yesterday). We are in sight of Rascal and Zippy do da which is comforting in a way and great to talk on the VHF. 

We bought a second hand asymmetric spinnaker before we left but had not had a chance to try it out.  Beautiful colours – light green and azure blue.  It had all been neatly folded into its ‘snuffer’ bag by Vic and today with such light winds seemed an opportune moment to try it out.  All went well hoisting it upwards until a gust of wind ripped it out of Paul’s hands and lacerated and burnt the skin on his fingers of his left hand – ouch!  The same hand in fact with the blue thumb nail on which he had dropped the locker lid yesterday – double ouch!  It did however give me the opportunity to assemble the entire medical kit and research both my books on how to deal with burns!!  He now has each finger bound with paraffin gauze, wrapped in sterile dressing, stuck on with tape and stuffed inside a sailing glove (with open fingers) to keep it all from falling off!

The fridges are gradually coming down in temperature, we have found the problem with the water maker where it was vented incorrectly (manufacturers instructions) and then back feeding which accounts for some of the missing gallons and has now been fixed so no more accusations as to who has had a sneaky wash!! 

We chopped up the last of our fresh salad today which was lovely and still in great condition – we could have bought more – who would think it would keep so fresh for 18 days?  And the bread, potatoes and lemons are still fine. 

It is 17.00 hrs and pitch black outside – night watches have commenced and Michael has discovered that the Hydro vane does work with the engine on so a less arduous time ahead of us….. we hope.  Harder to fix the Twistle than we first thought as the shackle we could attach then jars and clashes with the universal joints…… we have emailed Den Maidment and await his ideas on the subject…..