Starry nights are, or were the order of the day. Jupiter is flashing all colours; red, blue, white green. Looks like a plane's lights but definately coming from the planet.

Squalls gave a few of us a needed wash and cleaned the decks of flying fish debris.

Yesterday one flew straight through the galley window narrowly missing the frying pan!

Its big pal, right in the middle of taking down the gennaker, took our lure for a run. Eric started hauling it in but as is becoming the norm, we lost it. Most boats seem to slow down when they get a catch. Too much effort to do that so we will have to let them go. Only three lures left so we will need to try and new tactic to get them onboard.

We flew the gennaker all day yesterday trying to make ground to the south as the forecast shows slightly stronger winds. Across the fleet winds seem fairly steady with quite a lot a squall activity. We had a good one last night that gave us an hour and a half of 8-9 knots. Probabkky not really a squal but a good breeze under a dirty black cloud.

Its borderline gennaker this morning so we're erring on the side of prudence right now but not sure how much lonmger we can hold out. The genaker reallly steadies the boat. Without it we rock and roll and it gets a bit noisy. With 5 of us, while its a bit crowded at times, there's plenty sleep and rest to be had.

According to the daily radio reports we seem to be hanging in towards the front of the fleet......hence the enthusiasm to get the gennaker up. Its the getting it down that's the problem!