The first of December started at one in the morning for me as we have a running joke in the family with regard to 'pinch and a punch first of the month'. Tracey and Livvy always get me and despite my protestations of 'wait till next month' it's been two years of defeat on my part. Unbeknown to me Tracey asked Eliot to catch me out as we slipped into December so even out here she has managed to creep under my guard.

Well not this time and I have to confess it's not down to my memory, for when Andy relieved me at one in the morning the first thing I received was my pinch and a punch. Not to be outdone and thanks to his reminder I sent mine to Livvy and Tracey via the satcom. I am sure there will be a family debate as to whether this is legitimate or not but after two years of defeat it was a small victory that had me chuckling away as I went to bed.

So far December has been good to us with a healthy wind and direction which delivered a really good 24hr run of 164NM. This is one of our best runs and I feel we will match it again tomorrow if progress so far is anything to go by. Let's hope we are in for a sustained period of mile chomping as we now have 24 days to make Christmas with the daily reminder of Eliot's Advent Calendar which Tracey put in his present bag. It's really nice to see it out.

If the speed is to our liking I would say that we have made a step into a different feel on the weather front. For a start it is much cooler and we are starting to use sleeping bags again. We are also suffering rain and have been in full foulies for the last couple of days. Color is now off the menu with nothing but grey all around us as the sun is unable to burn its way through the low cloud. Gone is the azure sea to be replaced by slate grey to go with the sky.
It's not the Southern Ocean yet but its presence can be felt.

Cheers Pete

Today is a day of halves in that we have hit half the southing between the equator and Cape Town and we have also hit half way down our chart. This might not seem much but the creases in our chart have come to signify very real mile stones in our lives. If you can visualise a chart of the South Atlantic with the continents of South America and Africa on either side and the equator across the top you have it. Now imagine it folded in half horizontally and then halved again on its vertical axis and you now have our creases or chart areas that we are working too.

Our plan is to ride that big merry-go-round of a high pressure system down the top left quarter, diagonally across the bottom left quarter, and then hit the home straight for Cape Town across the bottom right quarter. Three clear parts to our long and at times drawn out passage. Today we crossed the crease into the second quarter and it feels good. We are making progress and we hope that the weather gods enable us to cut the corner in this new quarter so that we pick up the home straight a bit earlier for that is the key to making Christmas Day.

You would not believe the amount of time that we spend studying the chart, running through every possible scenario to see what is and isn't possible. Our bench mark is of course the original voyage and its become clear that those guys knew their stuff and were sailing hard. Our feeling is that we will start to have a realistic handle on progress in eleven days time.

Christmas is still very much in the frame but we do need some help from the weather gods and at the moment we have a good wind and course. Let's hope it holds for a while for Christmas in Cape Town is all we ask and hope for.

In the meantime, I am going to savour crossing that crease and all the effort that went into it with a quiet Talisker for it deserves it.

Cheers Pete

Eliot has just relieved me and I am sat by the chart table at a loss as to what to say in today's blog which is unusual as it just seems to pour out normally. Perhaps it's because I feel so chilled out after a really nice couple of hours on the helm. We have had a gorgeous day with about fifteen knots just aft of the beam and the boat romping away at 6-7knts. The sun has been out and being Saturday its been fun in that we open our presents from Tracey. It's a real highlight for Eliot and he was delighted with a Chris Ryan book and a packet of sweets. As to mine; well, in Falmouth during our last night with the families Tracey, Livvy, Gina and Kimmy were giggling away in a corner and wouldn't say what it was about but that I would find out. It was a Borat Mankiny and false moustache and the note that came with it said: "picture not for the website". I tell you we were in stitches as I did a strut on the foredeck for the camera, and if you want to see it donations to the charity please!

The other ritual on Saturdays is that we always have a really nice meal and a bottle of Skinners to wash it down with. It's a nice routine and something that we look forward to and make an effort for. My watch spanned the meal and that's why I am sat here feeling so chilled. I guess it's also because we have had a great 24hrs with a shave, wash, clean clothes, an easier motion and a noticeable drop in temperature which has enabled a decent sleep.

In a nutshell, it's just good to be alive at the moment and I can't say any more than that.

Cheers Pete

What an amazing 24hrs we have had with just about everything thrown at us as we wend our way south and a bit east - I'll say that again; a bit east. This mornings fix has us the right side of 32 degrees and it feels good for there seemed to be some kind of force field holding us back. Our 24hr run was a healthy 130 miles and the chunk of chart that it has given us gives no sense of the variety that it offered up.

The morning saw a bright sun and clear sky with shirts off and full sails drawing us south at a fair rate of knots. Between then and now we have had torrential rain, squalls, calms and a period of sustained strong wind that had a reef in the big lug, the big mizzen handed with the small one in its place. A busy old day which was compounded by an increadibly confused sea over Stocks Seamount. In fact we suffered it for about four hours and when I say suffered it I mean it. Never have I seen the like with great lumps of random water, some of it breaking, from all directions. The motion was terrible and helming felt like a woork out in the gym.

This huge upsurge of energy got us thinking and scribbling away on the back of a chart to put some context to what we were struggling through. We have the rough dimensions of the seamount and simpified it into a piramid with a square base measuring 70km by 70km and standing 3.5km high. This gives a volume of 6000km cubed. The numbers are getting big now but thats in the order of 6 trillion cubic meters. If we then say that the Brazilian current is running at 1knt from surface to sea bottom then 6 trillion tons of water are being displaced an hour. I am sure the physics are not that simple but think of the energy involved and you realise that we had but a ruffle on the surface.

Four hours of effort saw us past the seamount and into a variable evening with the wind rising and falling for no visible reason until it stabalised in the early hours. Out came the reefs and up went the big sails to greet a lovely dawn with bright sunshine and a settled sea for the first time in a week. Its been tough going since the equator and I cant tell you how lovely it is to draw breath and just enjoy a nice day. The forhatch is open for the first time in a week, Eliot has done a big cloths wash and its on the line drying. We have bread in the oven for Bacon butties and we are just standing in the sun in shorts like cormorants with their wings out to dry. Its bliss and to top it all off the wind has backed and we are able to come up towards Cape Town.

A little hardship makes the good things that bit sweeter.

Cheers Pete