We had a fabulous New Years Eve in Cape Town; dinner at a swish restaurant and watching the fireworks with Peat Smoke and Gunvor. The rest of our time was spent provisioning and getting matilda ready for the 1690 nautical miles to St Helena. We left on the 5th as scheduled and so far we have had plenty of wind so no need to bother with Mr Stinky (our engine). The Duogen is churning out power too, so we've had no reason to use any diesel at all so far which is always nice.

I've been a little ill since we left Cape Town - just a cough and a bit of a cold - so my usual trouble with getting enough sleep has been exacerbated. As you can imagine I'm a joy to be with, but Heather is coping well. We've been eating wonderfully well this leg thanks again to Heather's provisioning efforts. We've had loads of fresh lettuce, tomato, cucumber, falafel, hommus, quiche, fish cakes and samosas. So with our usual ban on booze when at sea we should be in pretty good shape by the time we reach Brazil. South Africa was a great place to spend a couple of months, but the food is so good and so cheap, you can't help but gain a few kilos.

We should reach the half-way point to St Helena sometime today and cross the GMT meridian line (zero degrees East to West) tonight. There is a World ARC BBQ party planned for the night of 17 January, so we should make it in plenty of time for that. We get to spend 72 hours in St Helena and there are a lot of interesting walks there we'd like to do, so we might have trouble fitting it all in. Most of the rest of the fleet will head for Salvador on 18 January, but we have decided to head for Fortaleza instead. This means we are not competing with the rest of the fleet for this leg so our last competitive leg (to Richards Bay) is now sadly behind us.

We should arrive in Fortaleza by early February in time for the Carnival there, then we will head for Tobago and the Southern Caribbean Islands for a month or so. We plan to arrive back in St Lucia by 1 April to have the generator replaced and for the final World ARC party on 15th. Matilda is already officially on the market now with a broker in Nanny Cay in the BVI, so we will drop her off there with a tear in our eyes late April.