01:32.940 S

093:10.761 W 

We are now 220 miles west of the Galapagos Islands and 2,800 miles from the Marquesas. We are still motoring, using one engine at a time to conserve fuel, and there is still very little wind - under 3 knots on the nose.

Our speed, which at under 5 knots was slow to start with, improved to an average of 5.6 kts once we cleared the Galapagos islands.  The weather gribfiles are not encouraging – it appears we will have wind but not for another 800 miles or another six days! 

We’ve seen no other shipping for more than 24 hours and although we know that there are one or two yachts behind us, they are well behind and we have not yet been in radio contact.

Today the temperature is 30°C with 40% cloud cover – a good washing day – and Pippa did a big laundry session (note - her own!) with sheets currently billowing in somewhat un-seamanlike fashion from the bows (while the skipper is asleep below).

Robert and Andy have done lots of onboard maintenance jobs.  One of these was improving the performance of our very crucial water-maker (converting seawater into very drinkable tap water) by removing the air in the system and renewing the filters.  They also replaced the port engine fan belt which had been causing problems.

Life on board revolves around our Rumpelteazer-patented watch system – broadly each of us does a 3 hour watch and then has six hours off, before repeating the cycle.  This is made a lot more interesting by our ‘day off’ arrangement -  one person each day has a complete day off, finishing on the 9pm to midnight watch one day and beginning again on the midnight to 3am watch the following morning. 

This watch system ensures that we mostly get 9 hours off each night and that we each do different watches every night, seeing sunsets or sunrises and sometimes both. The ‘day off’ is not entirely spent ‘at leisure’ as there are always domestic and maintenance chores to be done – not least, turning the vegetables and seeking out what HAS to be eaten today.  Sadly our banana 'tree' (below) is now bare, and about to be consigned to the deep.

Stop press!  Max has just reeled in our first Dorado, or Mahe Mahe (about 10lb in weight), and the impressive thing is that he ‘engineered’ a lure out of a piece of kitchen foil.  Plans for supper have changed again!