I was awoken early this morning by John [Leach] as he fell into our cabin shouting: “quick, Chloe and I have caught a fish and we don’t know what to do with it..!”

Being chief fish surgeon, I scrambled out of bed to find the pair of them cowering in the corner of the saloon pointing out into the cockpit to a small quivering Dorado flailing about behind the wheel.

Less than an hour later Laurie [Dunn] had another one on the line to go with it.

Only three days into the trip and we’re smokin’ along in the fabled south-east trades with the spinnaker up and 20kts of wind pushing all 28 tons of ‘Happy Spirit’ through the water at a blistering pace – well 8-9 knots anyway. How she moves I’ll never know, with all our stores and spares aboard!

So here we are sailing under sunny skies, puffy little white clouds here and there, in deep blue water, and dining on fresh fish for lunch, things are looking just great. The question is will we be brave enough to leave the kite up tonight?