46 42 S 59 35 E

Dead calm! As we came on watch yesterday at 6pm the sea was like glass. Not quite the flat glass of a secluded lake but more the gentle rippled variety you might have in your bathroom window. The sky was blue and the sun was shining but it was still brisk - somewhere between a bit chilly and blimey! It's a bit brass monkeys out here. There was a little wind, gentle puffs of about 5 knots, but we could see more coming. Cops' watch said it had been much worse and they had experienced patches of no wind at all. At one point they went backwards, something we are becoming quite practised at recently. It begs the question if we are going backwards in a round the world yacht race that says it's going the wrong way, are we going the right way during these brief moments? The navigators suggest we ae not. As we sat huddled on the low side we watched as the puffs gradually got bigger and more frequent and pretty soon BP Explorer began to pull at her harnesses and lurch forward. The grip tightened on the helm and there was a sigh of relief, we were going again. We thought about the Genoa a couple of times and she was unflatteringly winched out of the sail locker and through the hatch like a fat lady being pulled out of a well. But as the wind rose she was left on deck and we stayed with the no 1 yankee. We were glad we waited because before long we were screaming along at 9 knots in 18 knots of wind and, by the end of the watch, we were thinking of putting up the number two. As usual the position reports are unlikely to be good reading after a slow afternoon and they showed that we'd lost ground to Imagine It. Done. but the damage wasn't as great with Spirit of Sark. We are finding it difficult at the moment to grapple miles off of the two leaders but we are hoping that by focusing on trimming and helming well an opportunity will present itself.

The boat has been rippling with reports of strange dreams this week and the on-deck conversations are strange to say the least. This leg has seen less sail changes than the previous southern ocean leg and as such there is a lot more conversation and suggested talking points to fill the time. The latest has proved both fun and somewhat frustrating. We have been trying to remember the theme tunes to TV shows. We belted them out one after another to start with but there are now fewer and fewer and we are suffering from brains full of 70s comedy and cop shows. Worse still there are a few shows that we nearly have but not quite. Like having the birdie song trapped in your head - a slow descent into madness is sure to follow.

John Bass