Ocean Blue - Ocean Blue - Another brief relationship bites the dust

Alas the fix to the DuoGen didn't last. After a night of fast revolving union, the DuoGen spat out the toilet brush handle early the next morning shattering hopes of a long term fix.

However being the tart she is, by early evening she had a new love, this time a far butcher solid 16mm stainless steel one stolen from the rigging spares box. So far this is a longer lasting fix and its more likely the DuoGen will tire first in this relationship.

That aside, all is well. We could do with more wind - its looking like our ploy to head north, whilst initially gaining us a lot of ground is not so good. The position reports suggest that the boats that have gone way down South are now in significantly better breeze.

Its now warm - well actually its very hot when the sun is out, sun shades are a must and over night there is still a warmth to the air. Boots and shoes have long been discarded by most of us even on night watches. Squally showers at random times overnight are present, with Pete taking the brunt of these. I have had clear starry skies with light but steady winds on my watches for the last two nights but Pete has had heavy squalls, wind sometimes dying, sometimes shifting both nights, seriously eroding his normally reliable sense of humour! Lesley who has a watch in between us has had it a bit mixed.

We have been using our Parasailor for the last two days, giving us an easy forgiving ride when the wind is around but a short period of frenetic activity dowsing it when it drops.

Every time we run the computer prediction of routing and arrival its a little demoralising as the arrival time seems to be getting moved back, but we can't complain as barring the slightly light winds its simply stunning out here - why wish it to end?

Derek, Lesley and Pete.