Oct 24, 2005 - 0946hrs UTC

0946hrs 24 Oct 2005 UTC 38’09”S 016’59”E Ref 480

will someone please tell the examinerShe who asks awkward questions of the crew and tests them with difficult tasks. that enough is enough. she is still dishing out a steady 50 kts, gusting 70 – truly alpine waves, marching endlessly and relentlessly past. not much fun – but we’re coping. thanks to all who have written lovely to have your support in this little mess just been catapulted sideways whole boat shuddering wind intermediate shriek, scream back to howl. still cant read this font – still cant find good glasses using pair of plastic fantastics.

From Chris P.

Your updates over the last couple of days have made sensational reading.  The descriptions of the wind and waves and how Berri was coping were making me clench like mad, so goodness only knows what it must be like for you in the middle of it.  Yours is truly an epic voyage – one that will go down in the annals of seafaring (hope I got the spelling right there!).

While agreeing with you about Kathleen FerrierSee Blow the Wind Southerly. Ferrier was a famous Scottish classical singer and a favourite in Alex’s family. She died way too young. and BTWS for deep impact, I would also nominate R Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ as being its equal – but only if sung by Elizabeth Schwartzkopf – closely followed by parts of Mahler’s Second.  Then again, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk and Billie Holiday can be pretty profound as well.

With you in spirit

chris – p, not n, yay – mr monk in particular. chris n  nice to hear from u too.

cant sit here for too long – have to keep fighting the condensation. i think we may get a bit of a break tomoz but bloody usb wont let me transmit to get gribWeather files. Graphics in Binary file: GRIB files associate a specific weather datum (eg wind velocity or atmospheric pressure) with a geographic position. Because the resulting file is a collection of these points they are extremely small and so ideal over slow links such as sailmail. so no wxShort for ‘weather’ worth speaking about. s african cape east forecast twaddles on about 25 knots  pih, i say. and tush. wot a lot of codswallop.