Hi all,

You might all wonder what we do during the day as I also imagined hours of free time to read, think and contemplate my navel, but our lives are very busy and made harder by the sloppy state of the sea. For the last four days we have had 20 foot swells roll across the yacht at 45 degrees which makes every task harder. Even making a cup to tea requires considerable coordination to avoid spilling it on the deck or down your front.  We are also trying to learn celestial navigation and helm the yacht ourselves rather than use auto pilot, so every hour is packed, and when not working we are trying to catch up on sleep. Last night the sea was very sloppy and it was like trying to sleep in a tumble dryer. In addition we had a guy rope part company from its shackle at 5am so we had very little sleep and decided to take it easy today. Most of us have caught up on our sleep in anticipation of the banquet later tonight. The champagne is chilled, the red wine has been allowed to breath and Mike will be serving canapés on the aft deck at 1800GMT, with champagne.

Today's highlights were 3 flying fish landing on the deck, that will be served at 1900, Andy asleep at the helm  at 8am (poor boy was absolutely knackered) and Joe and I going 'Swedish' at the helm for that all over tan (sorry if that has caused any distressing images). We had 1450 nautical miles remaining at 1015 (Tues 29) so are more than halfway to St Lucia and if we manage to average 7-8 knots should be in St Lucia 7-8 days.  We have actually logged 1690nm due to heading south to catch the trade winds even though they are still light, mainly under 20 knots.

We have seen very few yachts during the last 4 days - only 2 in fact, and we seem to be sailing by ourselves. Our visual horizon is only 7-9 nm so there could be one of the fleet just over the horizon. Nine days at sea and no signs of cabin fever yet.

The weather has been stunning, sunny and very hot, and we are monitoring our water consumption to ensure we drink sufficient, as it is easy to get dehydrated. Every one seems to be having a sea water shower in preparation for dinner and there is a queue for the aft deck shower - we should have brought two buckets. The sea water shampoo has been a great hit with the crew!

That's all for today

Ian