My producer (you know who you are) once told me to make my blog posts a bit less, well, miserable. To make her point she sent me a download of D'Ream's 90's hit, "Things Can Only Get Better". Well, lying in the cockpit last night under the canopy of South Pacific stars I thought it really doesn't get much better than this. Although a cold beer might have helped. And less banging. And then it rained.

The banging of the sails as the boat rolls is like one of the flapper/crackers you used to get in the Beano. Two triangular bits of cardboard glued down one edge with a piece of folded brown paper glued inside. A sharp downward swipe would make the paper burst open with a real bang. Amused all our teachers. Anyway, that's what a slatting mainsail sounds like, except its 500 square feet doing the banging, usually just as you're dropping off. Just in case you think it's all beer and skittles out here.

Quiz night last night. Participants from all countries and from across hundreds of miles of ocean. Quite weird but good fun.

Only 130 miles to go as of early this morning so a night arrival is on the cards. Rule number 1 - don't make night arrivals to new, unknown ports. So, we may put on the brakes and stall 'till dawn. Then it's a run ashore for fun and frolics on our first French Polynesian island. We're following the track on David and Caroline's chart. They had a slow, windless passage a few years ago so we've won a watch having had constant wind, never less than maybe 7-8 knots and mostly enough to keep us at over 5 knots; a slow walk but we never had to reach for the bottle! 24 days door to door; 23 and a bit if we don't slow down and break rule number 1.