Last night’s wind was still unpredictable but we managed to sail through much of it; and at 0645 it filled in reasonably steadily so off we went. At the time of writing we are actually sailing our preferred course at nearly 6 kts (three cheers!) albeit to windward, and as the wind has increased we have popped in a reef so Mr Windy P is doing a far better job of helming. The forecast is mixed (big low pressure system up to the north west but moving away slowly) but generally better than yesterday’s.

Yesterday’s highlights: we had a visit from a pod of dolphins, who played in our bow-wave for a while. S took some fabulous photos but you will just have to wait for those till we get to land. Evening saw a spectacular sunset, covering literally half the horizon; one of those ones where just as you think it’s the most amazing you’ve ever seen, the colours deepen, the clouds re-form and it just gets better and better. Again, photos will have to wait. G was on kitchen duty and made us a delicious chilli with rice. And the banana bran loaf â€�" while dense â€�" is pretty good. And big.

We are definitely settled into our routines. One of the highlights is at 1300 when we send out the blog and pick up the position reports from ARC â€�" all this done with a very carefully controlled burst of activity on the Iridium satphone. The position reports keep us occupied for a good hour, as we put the fleet data into spread-sheets, strip out the reports for the racers and multihulls, and then analyse the heck out of it: how many boats are further east/west than us, how many are further north/south, how many closer to St Lucia, how are our buddies doing…? We know it’s not a race, but still! Very hard to get a real sense overall of our relative performance, but generally we hope we are doing respectably.

We’re also quite well settled into our night watch routines. We now have a four-day rota of two-hour hitches between 20.00 and 08.00, so each night two people do a second shift, and we take turns having the sunrise shift. The rules: on-watch crew is tethered to the boat at all times, and never leaves the cockpit without calling on someone to come up and help/watch their back. Two hours on watch is very painless (usually) and gives a good six-hour sleep between times.

More anon.

Distance run in the last 24 hours: 113 nautical miles

Cumulative distance run since ARC start: 629nautical miles

Late breaking news - just caught a good fish for super.