Day 7

Greetings from the forward starboard watch: day 5 at sea, 570 nautical miles done to date. 33deg S, 159deg E.

Our first watch was 12:30 to 16:00 – what excitement when we spotted dolphins and if Pete and Carly are to be believed a 30ft shark!! Lots of Albatross were following the ship, we think the same ones from Sydney but cannot prove same. We’ve also spotted other types of birds, have a guess as to what they are?

We adjourned to the bar and due to the bad influence of the one and only Irish representative on board, Nuala started some of us gambling playing Yatzee, stakes have yet to be decided!! As dinner Bing bong, Bing bong went we had to postpone finishing the game.

We enjoyed our Sunday Roast Beef, minus Yorkshire pudding due to weather conditions, lives would have been put at risk if Cookie Derek had attempted to make these!! The daily saga of Stuart and spillages continued thankfully this time it was only the gravy boat.

As our glorious leader Alli was on Mess duty, our ‘caring’, cuddly commando Graham took over the role of watch leader and fulfilled his duties to perfection, especially considering he only started sailing 5 days ago.

Our watch began early because of the requirement to reduce sails at 19:00 it was all hands on deck to accomplish this. Even with reduced sails, what with Gale Force 8 winds we were still hitting 10.4 knots!! All thanks to Catherine on Helm. Do we impress you yet? We saw more of the moon tonight than we saw of the sun during the day.

The night was helped by the Tim tams supplied by Wendy, it really boosted the morale. Jelly snakes that Nuala supplied have now run out, future crew please take note, these are essential to keep the spirts up.

When we eventually got to our bunks it proved quite difficult to get more than just shut eye due to constant heel of the boat on the ladies port side. But we still looked beautiful in the morning!!

Keep sailing and smiling, love and best wishes to all our loved ones,

from Alli, Graham, Carly, Catherine, Pete, Wendy (all from the UK); Nuala from Ireland and Stuart from Sydney.