"Keep Smiling Thru-Crew"(or as happy as little babies)

There is one thing every sailor dreams of..a few days of good weather to settle into the boat once you set off..we hit the jackpot!..it is unbelievably beautiful out here at the moment..everything is perfect..temp 24, blue sky with fluffy clouds, one mtr sea, 10-15kts SE wind and we have been sailing at 3-5kts all day..we are 40 miles out to the west from Tofua still visible on the horizon and there is no water coming onto the boat...we have all our sails up the fishing gear out and seriously involved conversations all day..life is good...

Yes we are feeling a little guilty that we are actually enjoying this immensely!

Both Dave's have gone off some of the food..last night we had our first tin of beef..Quilter just said no...Dave Wilkinson tried but immediately spat it over the side..Chris and I are all smiles. Quilter has declared he will be Vegan till Restoration Island..Dave think we will have his share..

We are on two litres of water a day b it as of tomorrow we go back to 1.5ltrs a day. We have about 60 limes onboard, native to Tonga and have one a day each..I put mine in the water, Chris eats his as is.

Dave Wilkins ..WILCO was the first to try the toilet onboard and came back with glowing terms, the Bidet effect goes right up your back and between your legs so the paper would never have worked anyway.Lunch today included 50 grams of Prunes and the discussion for awhile moved onto the laxative effect of our ships biscuits even.

So we have checked our know log, a small board we throw out on a rope with knots on it, time 15 seconds then count the knots to give us speed...very accurate.I took my first noon sight, so that was ok but been too relaxed to work it all out yet...to much to enjoy all around..will do tomorrow.

With the South East wind we have decided to head due west and keep the boat moving rather than head North west to Fiji. It will change latter hopefully. We are using the hour glass that His Majesty the King of Tonga gave us which is a bit of fun for us all..we have 6 hours on and 6 hour off watch during the days and 4 hours on and 4 hours off during the night while conditions are so good. Chris is very happy with so much sleep as he says he can do that for 18hrs !!

We did our blood checks today and I was the only one with lower Glucose levels..also our Urine tests "Dick Sticks" are giving us all sorts of interesting information...but today it came up with us all having blood in our urine?? laughs all round but that is what it says!!

It was so good last night when we were finally on our own even though it has been a BIG help having there camera support boat for the past 11 days..Mark the skipper of IANTHE and the Diageo support team we fun and supportive. They ended up on less water rations than us..1 ltr a day..too many showers so we felt very good.

It will be dark here in about one hour so time for water rations, dinner and getting organised for the night..we cannot use torches.

Talisker Bounty Boat is looking and feeling bigger right now...we are getting into a system and everyone is at the moment respecting our own spaces. This may change as we get further into it but only time will tell. Something tells me it is going to be a great night to be on watch. How long will it last?

Margie paged us this morning to say the tracker was not getting up onto the web site..all is well here and we know the signal is getting out so hopefully you will see us trucking along soon...wish you were here!!
Don