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Good news; again! Not only did nothing break yesterday, the generator actually mended itself. I think all the talk of the engine’s ability to multi-task shamed it into action. I flicked it on at midday yesterday, just on the off chance that all the shaking about by the waves may have knocked whatever was out of place back into place, and it worked. All the little red lights went on (these are good red lights as opposed to scary red warning lights) and the battery-monitoring panel showed that it was producing power.

Great news! We didn’t break anything yesterday. It was still too rolly to send Jacob up the mast and so we had to stick to our poled out genoa and staysail combo. The wind angle had changed overnight, however, and so we did have to swap everything over to the other side. That involves rather a lot of knitting and making sure that the sheets and guys (fancy nautical name for ropes) run the correct side of the guardrails, and that the running backstays are in place and tensioned correctly.

Yesterday was panning out to be a bit of a dull day (from an activity rather than weather perspective) and I was getting increasingly worried about what I could write about in today’s blog. We had been sailing all night with the Blue Water Runner, and making great progress. Our normal routine is to drop the sail in the morning and in the evening to check for wear on the halyard (and if there is any wear, we chop that bit off - so be warned!

Yesterday we woke to a very different kind of morning. There were ominous dark clouds on the horizon, obscuring the sunrise. Those particular squalls dissipated before catching up with Shepherd Moon, and the day turned out to be a typical tradewind day. Clear blue skies with a scattering of fluffy white clouds overhead, clear blue sea all around with a scattering of flying fish and around 8 to 10 knots of breeze (still not a proper tradewind: 2nd class post rather than next day delivery).

Yesterday we celebrated passing the halfway mark. For those paying attention you will know that we passed the halfway stage on Saturday evening but we didn’t want to jump the gun. That would be like opening your Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, which, as we all know, is naughty. So how do you celebrate on a 15-metre boat (OK, 14.79 metres) in the middle of the ocean? Well firstly you go for a swim.