Today has been a good day. It seems that we have repaired the Fleet 77, we have worked out a system to put the Solent up, we have had the time to clean out the long term stowage area for the provisions, we did a check on the fuel consumed and what we have left, we have spent some time checking around the boat to ensure there are no hidden problems.

Yes, it has been a good day.

The only sad thing about the day is the weather conditions. In actual fact, we have a blue sky with little cloud, calm seas, and light winds. A perfect day for cruising, but not for racing. The wind is developing and we are now doing around 18 kts, in the right direction. That is a big step forward, now we want to see a consistent 20 kts plus and we can start to knock off regular 500 mile a day runs. 4 or 5 of these and we would soon be round Cape Horn and on our way down the South Atlantic to Uruguay.

We can now use the Solent headsail, not with the furler, but manually, and the Fleet 77 that has not been working is now up and running again. This is the state of the art Satellite Communication System that we use to send back video footage and still photos to our shore based race offices. When it is not working, not as much information can be sent from the boat and our website cannot be updated with current information It is a fact that today\\\’s technology is another world to what it used to be. We can be on the other side of the Earth, thousands of miles into the Southern Ocean, and we can instantly send back \\\’real time\\\’ video footage. We could be pounding through big seas with freezing waters whipping across the deck, the crew hanging on and trying to keep the boat moving at high speeds and in the right direction, while you are watching all this from your home, anywhere in the world.

We had Mountain House beef and potato stew for lunch, part of the Marine Cuisine range that has been keeping us going for the last few weeks. Some of the guys are a bit down because we run out of choc bars each week. Considering that we have around 100 choc bars in a weekly bag for the crew, one would think there is enough for everybody, however if you divide 100 choc bars by 8 it gives 12.5 choc bars for each crew for a week, divide that by 7 and it\\\’s just under a couple of choc bars a day. Oh well, I suppose we could have had more. But considering we have a lot of nuts and dried fruit which is very nourishing, there really should not be a problem.

Can you believe it, we have not seen another ship, a plane, any sealife, since we left the Indian Ocean. There is no doubt, it is very lonely down in the Southern Ocean.

Let us continue to go East and follow in the path of the great mariners of years gone by.

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