Sea and wind continued in same vein as the last few days so stayed on port tack all morning making good progress and setting up for a 200 miles run.  A very pleasant day with some sunshine.  After lunch we bore away a few degrees and sailed downwind goose winged. Doesn’t seem to be much in the way of cetaceans around but maybe they’re all just lurking below the surface!  First day we’ve had 2 properly cooked meals - home made soup for lunch and stovies (Matt’s favourite for his birthday) for dinner and I even made a loaf of bread – well I didn’t really - the breakmaker did – the breadmaker has turned out to be a little smasher – what can I say it’s the next best thing to… er… sliced bread!  Good to say I’m feeling back to normal again.  Even had a G&T to celebrate Matt’s birthday!  As we began to think about reducing sail for the night and Matt was doing the daily check, he noticed a broken strand on the lower cap shroud so we put the main away completely and just sailed downwind with the poled out genoa for the night.  Very slow and rolly so not very comfortable.  This morning we managed to get a look at the broken end and it seems like it’s probably been broken for a while, despite regular checks. Nevertheless we have managed to double up on the lower shroud using ¾” braid between the lower spreader and the bottle screw. We managed to get reasonable tension onto it using a big 1” galvanised bottle screw bought in Panama for just this purpose. We will have to take it a bit easy now and it will probably add a couple of days to get to the Marqueses. We need to start investigating rigging repairs in Tahiti, so anyone out there with ideas or info please email us. We are now sailing again under reefed main and headsail on a course of 245 degrees with sunshine!

24 hour distance:  160 miles     Position:  S09.31.205  W107.29.461