We ticked off another good mileage day at midday today, and so in the last five days we have covered as many miles as in the first nine days. Yesterday morning we put the spinnaker up for the first time since just after the start in Las Palmas, and 36 hours later if is still up, and doing an excellent job. There is always a degree of risk associated with flying a spinnaker at night, especially when there is no moon, but we took it last night and it paid off, and at times the sailing was quite exhilarating. We are now debating whether to do the same tonight.

A review of our provisioning has identified a couple of problem areas. Firstly fresh fish. We decided not to fish until we had consumed most of our fresh food, so it was not until three days ago that we started fishing, and we had almost instant success, catching a nice yellow fin tuna within minutes which provided a very nice meal that evening. The line went back in the water immediately, but sadly there is no further success to report.

Secondly breakfast cereals. The rate off consumption afloat must vastly exceed the rate ashore because after twelve days we have eaten all the cornflakes, branflakes, weetabix and muesli. This left several members of the crew making porridge this morning in the tropical temperatures that prevail at the moment. The good news for them though is that we have enough porridge oats for another two weeks.

Moving consistently has produced a slightly relaxed, happy atmosphere on board, and it seems to be tempting providence with 1200 miles to go, but there is talk of where we might eat in Rodney Bay next Monday evening and what we might have, and that is eight days away!

The weather forecast is good though, and we continue to move through the fleet.