The most important event of the day by far for me is that it is my eldest daughter Charlotte’s 18th birthday. I am extremely sad not to be able to be there to share this special day we had originally thought that had the race gone ahead on it’s original start date we would be celebrating in Antigua but this was obviously not to be. So Happy Birthday Charlotte enjoy your party! and then we can celebrate it again in a few weeks in Antigua.

The lack of wind has now lasted for over 24 hours and therefore every mile that we row has to be done with hard effort. With the lack of wind life is also a lot hotter for us so with the extra effort and the heat to contend with we feel rightly proud of each mile gained. Therefore it was especially rewarding when we got the news that we has gained a place to 7th and were the 3rd fastest pairs boat in the fleet (out of 21). We covered 48 miles in the last 24 hrs which is amazingly close to our daily target of 50 miles considering the lack of wind and wave assistance. We are now well below the 1,500 mile mark and looking forward to the halfway point (as the crow flies) of 1350 early next week.

To while away the long hot 3 hour rowing shifts I have for the first time started to listen to my Ipod. This has been great and the combination of music and audio books makes the time fly faster. I alsothink that I row harder without thinking about it and therefore attribute the impressive daily mileage down to the Ipod.

The lack of wind and cloud last night made for an impressive sunset, the whole western horizon ablaze with orange and yellow. We have seen a few impressive sunsets since we have been ut here but this was in a class of its own so much so that I stopped rowing and spent time taking pictures. As we watched the sunset we also noticed some large fish by the boat. With the still water we could clearly see a group of yellow fin Tuna swimming next to the boat literally only feet away. These are truly impressive fish, there are 5 or so of them ranging from 3 feet to about 5 feet.As they swim next to us you can clearly see their irridescent blue front fins and body with the bright yellow tail fin. The group seemed to have adopted us and have stayed around all day today. As I was rowing approx 2 hours ago I had 2 of them swimming diectly under the end of my left oar only a couple of inches from the surface so that each time I took a stroke it had to dodge the blade.

We assume the fish are using the boat as a good place to hide from their prey or some similar reason. We have also seen them at various times throughout the day leaping right out of ther water when they are 20-30m from the boat. An amazing sight when they are upto 5 ft long and clear the surface by a good couple of feet. We are hoping that this is them chasing their prey rather than them being pursued by somerthing bigger!

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