Position 38 08N 33m 35.5W

Monday 25^th May

Well, what a surprise. Having been on watch from ten till midnight last night, the veteran of the crew awoke to find the cockpit splattered with multicoloured balloons – Happy Birthday. Secreted around the boat were cards and little presents from home, and from the crew (large jar of peanut butter), followed by an Atlantic Birthday call with Happy Birthdays from Jan, coupled with an excellent solo rendition from Millie. After a little more grappling with the sextant and tables, there followed an extended, luxurious celebration lunch commemorating both the birthday, and the fact that we’re exactly half way in longitude from the Caribbean to Plymouth, though hopefully rather more in distance run. The menu commenced with fresh baked bread and canapés and a bottle of bubbly (stringent rules suspended for the day), then eastern Tuna wraps, a main course of  Spicy noodles and a very sticky chocolate brownie pudding fortified with a tot of grog – all this in baking sunshine and a ground speed of over six knots to the waypoint – marvellous, and well done all, near and far. The fuel remaining in cans and the tank means that we’ve been able to increase the revs. a little. At noon today the distance to Flores dropped to 134 miles which should see us there at around midday tomorrow, all things being equal. The plan is to stay there overnight, pick up some fuel, sort a whistle stop tour of the island on Wednesday and then leave overnight to complete the 135 mile trip to Horta by Thursday evening.