Looking for Christmas Island

We are in that ocean passage phase, where days roll by in the cycle of on-watch - off-watch, cooking duty and sail changes. The wind has been perfect for the Parasailor spinnaker which drives us west during the day, with a solid steadying feel on the boat, damping the roll of the swell. At night however we have been taking it down and running under mainsail and Genoa to reduce the risk of having to take it all down in the dark if the wind gets up. The promised gale seems to have reduced in subsequent forecasts.

There have been intense flows of shipping passing up and down from Western Australia to the Far East with occasions with seven cargo ships passing within a mile or so as we cross the busy tracks.

At night there are groups of fishing boats with bright lights giving a glow to the sky from far off. We had to do some emergency avoidance the other night when one kept coming towards us.

Last night we saw millions of glowing things in the water. They start to glow if we shine a light at them and we amused ourselves by painting the sea with our torches and then admiring the dense patterns of glowing blobs glowing across large areas. I suppose that they are squid. During this we had the strange phenomenon that our boat speed showed only 1 or 2 knots, as though the squid were affecting the speed sensor, or even slowing us down as if we were sailing through tapioca. Meanwhile the GPS said we were still travelling at 5+ knots.

The joy of having a strong current going our way is that every day it adds about 30 miles to the distance covered. We have been puzzled in the Atlantic and the Pacific by the absence of the expected helpful currents, and works still having it against us most of the time.

I tried making a fishing lure from an empty metallised packet of coffee - looks good but no fish so far. Meanwhile our last big tuna catch has now been enjoyed as 1. breadcrumbed fried goujons, 2. Catalan Fish Stew, and 3. poached with ginger and garlic. Mark has excelled himself with coconut scones served hot at tea time.

I had the excitement of celebrating my 38th year of fatherhood and 10th year of grand fatherhood. Happy Birthday to Kate and to Ruth!!!