4/12/10         14 44N 37 39W    Saturday Day 14, Awoke to shouts from Jody calling for the children on deck, a large fish had been sighted, it was alone and looked at first like a very big dolphin but it moved differently and had  a rounded dorsal fin, and in total was 3-4m long. Aston later identified it as a ‘Melon headed whale’. It kept surfacing just behind the boat and then coming alongside the hull nearly touching us, I was worried that it may be alerting it’s friends to attack but it peacefully left us after around 10 minutes. At last this must be it, sunshine, a sparkling turquoise sea and northerly winds of 1-15 knots giving us a steady 8-9 knots boat speed. We hear that there is deep snow in London and -4 degrees in Cowes, we contemplate this as we apply more sun screen and break out another round of cold drinks. We started recalculating arrival times and spent a pleasant day hand steering making some great distance with now just over 1200 miles to go. All had a pleasant day except Ashley perhaps who spent most of the day working on the generator trying to fix the air which seems to be getting into the fuel supply and causing a ‘surging’ of the generator..this is most annoying as it effects the Nintendo Wii and can re-set a game as the voltage drops! Saturday is cleaning day aboard Nakesa (be warned you potential visitors, no-one escapes) and despite a little illness in the crew this morning and a heaving deck we set about a thorough clean including a deck wash, the boat looked much better by mid day and Phaedra, Jody and I sat down to a celebratory beer...Ashley could not spare the time and kept working, a very committed crew member. Cocktails, classical music and sunset as normal, the leg of ham is now getting much more difficult to carve but the taste gets even better, dinner by me, covering for Ashley, well he had had a very hard day! We still will have to wait to sample his first meal. We have already made plans for Sunday lunch if we are in, a good restaurant with a view and Lobster Thermidor with chilled white wine. Its a good image to look forward to but actually no-one is yearning for land..not even A&A who are now half way through the first series of ‘Lost’ and loving life at sea. The ARC Rally control have changed the welcome drinks party on Wednesday 8^th December to an ‘Early Arrivals’ party and the welcome party by the Mayor of St Lucia has been moved to Saturday the 11^th, so this is now our target, it will mean an average speed of over 7 knots but averaging over 8 today so it may be possible as stronger wind is forecast. Our best run today, 195 miles, still haven’t broken the magic 200 this trip but getting there. As I write a flying fish has just landed at the bottom of the companionway steps, we have had a least one aboard every day so far. This is the second day with no other yachts in sight, it seems we are alone at last and only just before we all re-converge on St Lucia, our ‘Yellow Brick’ is obviously not transmitting as the ARC only have a 2 day old position for us, it will be interesting to see tomorrow how we are doing if it gets updated, it better as we are now shown as 96^th  and that will just not do!