As expected, the wind increased this afternoon so it’ll be back to lurching and crashing tonight. At least the knickers are clean, the colon metamucilated and the toilet working. We are romping along in 43S.…

We were becalmed all last night in the Southern Ocean. Seems incredible! It was not peaceful at all, because the sloppy seas had us lurching about like a WC Fields drunk. Extremely frustrating, the absence…

We’re in the roaring forties about 400 miles east of the Chatham Islands loping along at about 6 knots. It’s been quite rough until now, but today the sun came out for a while and…

Our Monday position at 0325UTC is 4326S/16655W. A front has just passed over and the sun has come out. In 20 kts of westerly, 038M is our best course, although the rhumbline is 066M. The…

We had a very near miss last night. A vital steel pin in the Aries came out. This meant that effectively the upper half of the vane gear was dismantled in situ, and suspended 4…

Today is Xmas day and 3 wonderful things happened – the sun came out, I stopped vomiting, and we opened Alex’s fruit pudding. What a trinity. What a feast – such unbelievable schmeck. We’ve been crashing…

Sunny. The wretched ESE headwind persists and the barometer is rising again. DMG yesterday was 110 miles! This is unbelievable. Still, we’re on course now. I am rediscovering Apollon Musagete. Call me old-fashioned, but I…

Now 17 days out of NZ, we’re and about half way to Chile (3827s/13511w). Tainui is being her generous self – always coddling, forgiving our mistakes. No problems other than a snapped steering cable and…

The speed with which weather systems roll past is remarkable. Weather comes rushing through, we get tossed about, get wet taking in sails, go below and dry off, take seasick pills, sleep, get up reluctantly…

28 days ex Cook Strait. 1,298 miles to go. The first month was OK, but now it’s getting quite hard. We’re both over it. fresh food’s finished apart from a few spuds. Still, we should…

27 days out from NZ. An essential timelessness prevails, events confronting us in disjointed, oddly isolated fashion. Events familiar, predicted even, but each with no real relation to what went before, what comes after. Oddly,…

What do we do? I sleep a lot, read a bit, write some, and make excellent bread. The best alarm clock is a full bladder. Dave sleeps a lot, reads much more, cleans fastidiously (usually…

10.01.07 Dave thinks it’s Wednesday. We’re about 6 days from our landfall in Chile. 830 miles to go. I’m starting to get little frissants of excitement, like a child with Xmas approaching. It’s the biggest…

How to write an email in the Southern Ocean? So little is really happening. What is memorable for David and me certainly isn’t, for the readership. And vice versa. Take Chris for example – working…

Today I read Banville’s book (“The Sea”) at one sitting. How could I not? After Faulks, he comes like spring after winter. Every page had me thinking of Chris, us, and wishing she were here…

In this warm horizontal environment, there is very little motion, but last night at the computer I felt a bit queasy as we rose and fell on a big, lazy southerly swell. As Martin Luther…

Nothing now can dampen my spirits. Such is the power of our growing anticipation. At 4am I filmed our fast progress into the cloudless sunrise, knowing there is likely only to be one more sleep…

We’re 30 miles off Punta Corona. Close reaching in 25-30 kts of SSE breeze on a lumpy sea. The visibility is poor. It is fast, wet and uncomfortable. We’re often over-canvassed and with a beam…

A fast, wet and quite uncomfortable arrival at dusk in a 30kt beam wind, awkward seas and dense fog. The landfall was a slightly apprehensive one for timid old me. Looking ghostly, forbidding and quite…

Deepest coma. Up at 6 to a misty cold morning. Nothing moves, nothing gets spilt; I don’t have to hang on. Around the boat, like an Imax movie, we see green fields, cows, a lovely…