Leg 2 Day 33 : 46' 51S 173' 2W

As I write this log wedged in next to the radar panel at the chart table, it's late Thursday night local time on 30th December in an hours time it will be Friday 31st December, and a couple of hours after that it will be Saturday 1st January 2005. Nobody is too confused yet? I feel cheated of the traditional homemade outfit I would certainly have worn for the Heroes and Villains night in my local (Happy New Year's Eve to all at The Notley Arms! And from everyone onboard to all friends and family at home), for as far as we can make out the crew of BP Explorer lose the right to link arms and sing very badly in unison due to an untimely crossing of the International Date Line. It's the New Year's Eve that we will never have. Hopefully we will tag a suitable celebration on the end of our belated Christmas lunch in Wellington and mark the occasion in style, but for now there is a veritable mountain of real cheese hidden under the saloon seats and we will feast on this tomorrow. Admittedly, with 651 miles to go and a Waypoint (or Wellington and Wine) Closing Velocity of 8.3 knots, all treats are rapidly losing their trading value; the Double Decker once worth at least two cereal bars will soon just be a squashy nothing in the bottom of our Curver boxes. Levels of treat exchange and consumption have therefore reached an all-time high in the last few days. The excitement beyond racing does not end there; our wildlife sitings have included not only some new large brown birds (as yet unidentified), a jellyfish on deck and two whales off the port beam, but also a floating rubber glove to starboard - a sure sign of approaching civilisation. It is tantalisingly close. Currently, it looks like we will arrive on Monday 3rd January (which will be Sunday 2nd in the UK). As the yachts to the south of us tack furiously, trying get north, we have thanked our lucky stars that we headed north early; the third-place position which we now enjoy seems relatively safe for now, but we certainly have a fight on our hands to catch Spirit of Sark we have made mile on them for the last three or four consecutive sets of scheds, and they are now seeming to hold their distance from us at ten miles. BG, SPIRIT meanwhile have been advantaged by being even more to the north, are 21 miles in front of us, and just over ten ahead of Spirt of Sark. We take our battle one step at a time and are simply doing what we always agreed upon - changing nothing at the last minute but maximising our best efforts to sail consistently as fast as we can. The goals which we set ourselves for Leg 2 are up on the galley wall and read 'Top Three out of the River Plate, Top Five Around Cape Horn and Top Three into Wellington.' We achieved the first two and to add a third tick to the list would be fantastic. Not-so-secretly, however, we are all hoping for one better. Naomi Cudmore