Nov 17, 2005 – 0430hrs UTC

 0430hrs 17 Nov 2005 UTC 44’53”S 067’19”E Ref 562

4453 6719 17/0430 sw wind at last and we are making about 6.5 vmgVelocity made good – loosely, speed in the right direction. along the gc track. we will be well short of miles for the day, but, inexorably, boatlength by boatlength we are putting this ocean behind us. we are 236 miles nnw of kerguelen, where the ait t was 1 degree a few days ago. feels like that here now and we are both feeling the cold. i have started to wear my finisterre fleece for the first time since down by cape horn – it has made a good pillow up till now. nice gear – a bit bulky to wear under party gearFull wet weather gear but great out on its own and looks after me well.

malcolm, could you please add 4 ltrs of metho and a couple of slabs of dark chocolate to the list. i think we are going to be right on the button for both those. i have rationed us to 2 squares of tesco’s best choc each day and we are now conscious of the need to conserve metho. i have 1 of wendy’s chocs per day left – i think pete has been a bit less conservative – thanks wendy and you were right about the tissues – i kept them in a ziplock and theyve been my stand-bys all the way.

the watermaker has slowed down – at best, it pushes out 4.5 ltr/hr – now it’s down to less than 3 – probably needs flushing through but will get us to se c. we are running the engine daily for about an hour – not enough sun for the panel to keep uth sydney boonies with peeing dogs and dolloping pigeons and the occasional vogon for company? can’t see it meself. someone asked us which actor we’d like to play each of us if they ever made a film – that’s really a loaded question isn’t it? – but ‘they’ couldn’t ever make a film without making us both bronzy and cool and marketable in the demographic. real reality doesn’t grab the goolies in the backblocks and boardrooms of the viewing world – the dreadfully manipulated ‘reality’ of reality tv is all the go and old farts just don’t cut the mustard. i wonder which of us would get voted off first. i’m the oldest, so statistically the most likely.

see you at 0700 steve.. i’ve given up trying sailmailSailmail is the system that Berrimilla uses for email communication. It is a non-profit association of yacht owners operating a network of private coast stations in the maritime Mobile Radio Service. – will wait till closer to oz and try firefly.