Leg 2 Day 12 : 59 07 S 77 49 W

Freezing cold, tired, emotionally drained, sometimes dreading the next sail change because you are so worn out from the last one, sometimes welcoming a chance to warm up a bit. The only real comfort onboard is your bunk. I am sleeping in thermals, fleece thermals, a thermal liner in my winter sleeping bag and a Gore-Tex bivvy bag. It's quite cosy but you need a rest just getting in! The girls are suffering more than the guys and they are wearing hats and gloves too. There is a heater onboard but it's not working so the only heat comes from the hob when we are boiling the kettle or cooking food. On deck, winds are howling at up to 40 knots true and averaging 35 knots. The yacht is heeled over at 25 degrees all the time. We are relentlessly slamming into huge waves sending torrents of water down the deck and freezing bullets of spray into the faces of the helms or anyone on the rail who lifts their head from the 'tortoise in it's shell position' for the briefest of moments. We are wearing everything we've got in our Curver boxes on deck but we're still taking it in turns to come below to warm up. Sail changes on the foredeck can be likened to trying to sew your initials into a parachute while clinging to a cliff face upside down under a freezing waterfall. Sounds bleak? Bloody hell you're not kidding! The secret is not to think how awful this environment is or how long we're going to be here. Laura gets through by thinking in milestones, only so many miles to the next waypoint, only so many miles from there etc. Me? I just try not to think about it at all and sing 80's pop tunes in my head. When I asked the rest of my watch if what I'm writing here was how they felt too, Rob (Robin Phillips) said, "If the fires of Hell went out, this is what it would be like". This is the kind of stuff that our parents said builds character. It' s not all bad, we've got each other and we still laugh, we are not miserable just in a bit of a state of shock. We are living the Challenge Business rough weather video. When I bravely told my mates in the pub of how rough it was going to be I wasn't thinking rough 24 hours a day for five weeks - that 'll learn me. Our course takes us to the edge of the Artic Peninsular and into the 'screaming 60's' so we may not have seen the worst yet either. On a good note, we cracked open a couple of bottles of bubbly today to celebrate Laura and Graham's engagement and David made a moving speech on the importance of love in the world. "It's at times like these, in places like this, that you realise just how important love is" he said. We're in third place and leading a pack of six yachts all following a similar course. To the North of us are BG SPIRIT and Spirit of Sark holding first and second place with the rest of the fleet behind them. There is a major incentive to sail the boat fast, the quicker we go the sooner we'll get there. Oh! And Mum, I'll never complain about your cooking again. John Bass