After a 24-36 hours of grey and squalls delighted to say we are back to sunny Trade Wind sailing.

We saw off the last of the squalls about 10am this morning after Eric got totally soaked. In the 60 minutes of flat calm following the front we dropped the main and repaired yet another broken slider.

I also spent some time on the pole track getting that operational so we're now back to full strength, bombing along in 20 knots at 7-8 knots.

We've also hit something of a "wall" with tiredness setting in for the first time. Its been hard to get quality sleep with the rolling and crashing so I thought I'd be smart and looked up the relaxation tracks on my iPod, took to my bed and..... lying six inches from the ocean rushing past my ears it was a bit of a blow to hear the "relaxing" sounds were......rushing water. Aaaarrrgghhh.

The narrator, "Imagine yourself as a drop of rainwater"....how about "Imagine yourself in a washing machine with a frightened cat" is more accurate.

Our sports psychologist daughter gave us some unpaid, professional advice regarding our fairly pathetic 33rd position so far...."Get the finger out" she wrote. Perhaps if we'd paid we'd have got a more subtle form of encouragement but we got the message, have extracted the digit and will hopefully make up some ground.

One aspect of this ocean passaging is how fitness impacts on your enjoyment. During the summer, after finding myself in a lather, lying in the cockpit completely knackered after winching in the genoa for the umpteenth time as we tacked up the coast of Majorca I decided to start doing some pre-ARC training. Consequently, since July, much to the amusement of many, I've been doing a daily routine and I can tell you I'm glad I did.

Just standing and moving around the boat is an effort and how some folks manage hauling sails up and down, taking reefs in and out, trimming sails, gybing and all the other physical efforts of running the boat is beyond me.

For example, Eric just pulled himself vertical from his bunk saying "Great this ocean racing....I can't even stand up". Poor boy has been a bit poorly but on the mend and the old jokes are surfacing again.

Not entirely sure that's a good thing.