Monday night saw our first official happy hour on deck with nibbles and G&Ts all round. Skip Adrian got the prize of the day from David for fixing the electrics – a card signed by all with daft vader on the front. (The sat phone receiver on the stern got a wack from another boat’s boom on the start line and now has a big black bag and shiny silver tape on it.) Rosie is planning a comedy face for it so watch this space?.

Nick was given an apron at happy hour last night with a big parakeet and a pint of Guinness to remind him of home and maybe encourage a little galley action. And to top off the happy hour as the sun was setting pink in the sky, matching our kite, a pod , or ‘Super Pod’ as they were affectionately termed as there were so many, came and played along with the bow wave.

The first position report came in shortly after happy hour yesterday evening which made for interesting reading and lots of discussion. The next report is eagerly awaited today?.. We have been flying along on a constant course with the kite up averaging 10 knots with only a slight flappy moment around 2am this morning when the wind was playing around. At midday today we swapped the spinnaker over and the pinkie came down nicely, after monkey man Gary shimmed to the end of the pole and spiked the guy then let the sail fly free and with a bit of persuasion from 3 people hanging on the end of the sock she was all bagged away on deck in no time and the new kite was flying nicely.

We are still on a starboard gybe and despite all Rosie’s positive thinking and mental powers the wind hasn’t shifted enough for us to gybe. Consequently this means the electric winch that the spinnaker sheet is trimmed on is about 4ft from Rosie and Nick’s bunk resembling a pneumatic drill. At 3.30am a weary Rosie appeared on deck with a bottle of warm water to lube up the ropes and hopefully stop all the squeaking.

We have seen a couple of boats today and David had a chat with one boat that passed our stern early this morning, they were heading south and we wished them well. The decks had a clean this morning so they are reflecting the sun nicely for that all round tan. A few crew have had a scrub down too suppressing the salt snowman look for a few more days yet. Red watch are on deck at the moment which consists of Phil, Rosie, Nick and Daniel. The breeze is fresh and the sun is shining. With that I will sign off for now??
Dee