The sun has got his hat on! Blue skies this Monday morning are a marked change from the cloudiness of the past couple of days. Overnight the wind backed more and more to the East; it rained hard for five minutes or so during Kevin’s 10pm to 1am watch. Come dawn the skipper poled out the gennie to bring Temptress back to course, a little slower than the reaching overnight but our COG (course over the ground) is now 260 and the BTW (But-tuh-wuh or bearing to waypoint) is 258.

Wondered why our pesky flies liked the inside of the locker immediately over the fridge… the cool of the icebox below is causing a lot of condensation. Took both of us to stop everything from tumbling everywhere but it has now had a good clean out and some elephant bog roll installed over the non-slip to soak up the liquid a bit; to be replaced on a daily basis if we remember! Hopefully it’ll be dry enough to dissuade the flies.

Our water tester is working again after the skipper gave it an inadvertent bath on Saturday whilst checking the water maker output prior to switching it into the tank. It slipped into the handbasin that had the first few litres of output in it. We could probably manage without the tester but it is a reassurance that the water being made is potable. The penlike device was disassembled and left to dry in a pot in the saloon. I idly put the watch batteries back in today and it switched on – our tap water is 110ppm (EU regs require max of 540ppm).

All well on board, though we are a bit skinnier than when we left despite the lack of physical exercise. Can only put it down to the serious cutback in beer consumption – most sundowns we either have a beer or a small glass of wine – and no eating out. Shorts now need belts and t-shirts are baggy. Do need some heart rate raising exercise though; no idea how unfit our legs have got either being confined to a 14m space for almost a month.

Noon to noon: through the water 140nm over the ground 155nm Noon position: 09 45.45S 127 50.11W
Distance to go: 645nm