Sunday May 12th, South Pacific Ocean 28:53S  175:03E 

Today’s Blog by Richard (Time zone GMT+12.00; UTC +12.00)

We are progressing very nicely and Serendipity is looking after us very well, as ever.

As a skier, I am familiar with the concept of the slalom but I have never seen it applied to sailing before. If you look at our track over the next couple of days you might conclude that the navigator should be given 20 lashes for drunkenness (obviously, that will happen anyway – it’s part of the overall package), however, our proposed track is a slalom by design rather than negligence. Our plan is to avoid the worst of a depression which is tracking southeast across our direct path by ducking round the back of it and the rounding back up to Fiji. The unsettled weather has brought rain and cool air and we did not expect to see a sight like this on our passage:

Well, I know people think that it must get boring just looking at endless sea, day after day. However, it is surprising how much there is to interest us. You never know what you are going to see next.

Rather unpleasant breath, we thought, but anyway, Serendipity soon saw him off. Occasionally, we see another vessel but Daryl usually makes sure they don't come too close. He always claimed to walk on water and now I know it to be true.

As you would expect, David keeps himself busy with the navigation side of things. Even he was surprised to see this channel marker in the middle of the Pacific Ocean so he went to have a closer look:

I have to admit, we were all surprised when we came across this uncharted island where David sensibly decided to ignore the road signs.

(Moderator's note: Having seen the draft of this blog, I felt I had to take immediate and decisive action with respect to the writer, to avoid this sort of nonsense being repeated on the blog in future. To alleviate any concerns which Richard's loved one may have about his situation, I can confirm he is OK, and managing to keep up with Serendipity quite well).