As the title says, we are now in the Northern Hemisphere, having crossed the equator on Friday night (3 December), at 20:10 (23:10 UTC). We crossed at 042 degrees 25.8 minutes west. As it was night, we held off our small crossing ceremony until Saturday and fun was had by all.

At the moment we are experiencing light winds from the east and sometimes from the east-southeast. This boat does not like to sail in light winds just aft of the beam, but accelerates brilliantly when the wind is on the beam or just forward of the beam, so the result is that we are plodding along most of the time between 5 and 6 knots and flying every now and again when the wind angle changes to the occasional east-northeast. Such is life when delivering yachts!

Every day we have been having pods of dolphin visit us and play around the boat. This has kept the crew occupied with something to do. The only person not going through books at an alarming rate is Dylan, who spends many hours studying to write his next skippers exam. I must admit that he has really mastered the art of navigation - the proper way with paper charts that is.

As I write this blog report, we have about a week to go before arriving at our destination. I say "about" as this is sailing and relying on making the most miles every day with the winds that we have. Sometimes it is really frustrating when you look at the speed log and see that we are barely moving, whilst at other times a person gets a great thrill to be able to achieve 7 or 8 knots with hardly any wind.

I am not going to keep this a long report as I am in watch and have to pop out to the helm every now and again to check that we do not sail in front of the occasional ship that passes us, so I bit you well until the next posting - regards from Dylan, Juan, Conrad and myself, John.