To all family, friends and armchair sailors - Seasons Greetings from all aboard Oceans Dream.

Today is not only Christmas day but we also crossed the 07 deg. 30 minute east meridian in the early hours of this morning, which means that at 6pm tonight we put our clocks back one hour and it magically becomes 5pm again - we have a double happy hour! This also puts us on the GMT or UTC time zone.

Over the past two days we have had a fair breeze out of the south east, indicating that we are in the trade winds and that what we have now (15 to 20 knot out of the SE) will remain for most of the leg to St Helena.

The day is overcast and looks set to remain this way for the remainder of the day. Thankfully it is not raining! The outside temperature is in the mid 20 deg. C range and the sea temperature is 22 deg. C.

Our lunch today will be tuna salad and biscuits - the tuna will not be out of a can! Tonight we plan a meal of roast lamb cutlets served with fresh vegetables and baked potatoes. This to be followed with fruit salad and custard. Not bad for a Christmas dinner in the mid-Atlantic on a 40 foot sailing boat. We also have a brandy-laced rich fruit cake for afternoon tea.

Well, we are about half way to St Helena and maybe need to put up our spinnaker later today to try and get a few extra miles on the log for the next day. Hopefully we will make the island on the 31st but we need to increase our daily runs a bit to achieve this. More on our progress in the next few days.

So, with Adrian and Jackie happily celebrating at the helm (above), we all bid you well until the next blog post.