GHOST

So 6 days at sea now, and it looks like in one more day we'll have covered 1000nm, basically 1/3 of the way there in a week implying the trip will take 3 weeks. Of course you need to factor into this that the first few days were a bit windless so we're hoping to get there in around 20 days all going well.

We're taking things very easy (currently 3 reefs in the main and less than half a headsail in winds of 15-20 knots, when we'd normally have up much more sail) following an issue with the rigging. Basically some of the metal strands on one of the inner stays looked to be pulling out of the swage so following advice from several experts we've reinforced this with the spinnaker halyard and an arrangement of various blocks and webbing. The job of this inner stay is to help keep the mast straight but we are pretty happy that our jury rig is helping support the rigging so will take it easy and arrange for a spare stay to be flown out to French Polynesia. The alternative was to turn around and head back to Galapagos but given that this would be beating into the winds and also what is quite a swell we thought it best to carry on gently downwind.

There are definitely differences between this and our Atlantic crossing. 3 crew instead of 6 means there is loads of space on the boat which is nice though it's definitely less social doing watches on your own. Jay is tucked up in his cabin with the kite surfer, wakeboard and the spare jib and Brad and I are sharing the port cabin - not sharing a bunk is good. I am doing most of the cooking but none of us are particularly hungry so it's a pretty easy job though the homemade bread and muffins I made yesterday were a winner. The 3 hour night shifts and 4 hour day shifts mean you get a bit less sleep but watching movies and listening to audio books on the iPod's helps speed things along at night. We have finally got out the sextant but can't get it closer than one degree out from our actual position (representing 60nm) so will keep trying on that - thank god for GPS and big respect for the old school sailors! We're all reading various Beagle/Darwin books and Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian so maybe this will inspire us to do better.

Brad is very disappointed that his dyson (vacuum cleaner) is not charging and is praying for it daily (clearly overused during the last 2 years). We were very excited a couple of days ago when we saw some whales for the first time (humpbacks perhaps). The other good news is we finally managed to eat the butternut squash soup that has been on board since before the Fastnet in August 2007. Given that the soup had more miles than Jay there were suggestions that we assign the tins their own watch.... perhaps we've been too long at sea already!