Leg 2 Day 4 : 41°51'00.0"S 57°26'00.0"W

The first 48 hours of a leg are tough even when conditions are favourable. Just getting back into the watch system puts the body through turmoil both mentally and physically. Faces of the crew look drawn even if they have got some sleep and the sailing muscles having been worked for the first time in several weeks now ache. We work just as hard throughout the race it just seems harder in the first couple of days. The first nightmare watch has come early in the leg again. The worst ones are at night where the pitch darkness makes things even more difficult and natural tiredness makes the reaction times that little slower until the adrenalin kicks in. What should have been a routine spinnaker gybe got all together more complicated when the sheet and guy failed to release from the end of the pole when the tripping line was pulled. For some reason, we are still not sure why, the sheet got tangled around the end of the pole and began sawing its way through the foreguy. The pole had to come down quickly and the only way to do it was to edge it bit by bit down the mast at the inboard end. When it finally got to the base of the mast it had to be brought back to the cockpit because it was the wrong side of the sheet to come down in the normal way. The frantic pulling of the trip line had jammed the mechanism in the pole and needed to be sorted before the pole could be then be safely stowed again. Below decks the off watch were rolled in their bunks and the all too familiar sounds of something not going to plan reverberated around the boat. Half dreaming, half awake you are not sure whether to get up or stay where you are and get some sleep - though getting to sleep is not a real option because you are conscious that at any moment you could be required to help out. Coming on watch your fellow crew tell you of the evening's events and you are thankful that it's all sorted as you pat them on the back and wish them a good sleep. Thankfully we had not lost too much ground. Spirit of Sark have edged ahead but they are only just in front of us and spirits raised after a good sleep the watches swap once more and the first thing to be announced is "our mission today is to get ahead of Spirit of Sark" We saw a group of ten or more whales yesterday, some sea lions and several Albatross, a good day nature-wise. The skies have been shrouded by cloud for most of the day, which gives us timely relief from the searing sun that even the factor 50 fails to totally protect us from. We have a great crew and skipper onboard BP Explorer and every day we sail together we improve as a team both personally and technically. This has already been shown in how much more relaxed David is with us and we are with each other and David. This leg will stretch us further than we've been stretched before but we are ready - bring it on. John Bass