The Pacific Ocean is living up to its name. We have had good sailing for 24 hours in the trade winds, but it has died and we had to start the engine. We are quite alone out here, occasionally we spot a bird and more rarely a ship. Helmuth, the automatic helmsman, brings us safely south, not against the sun, which is standing in the north.

The nights are light, like a Nordic summer night, because the moon is about to be full. You can still see The Southern Cross standing high in the sky. Sailing through the night is really an exciting experience and it does no harm, since you can even do it in shorts.

I am getting used to the programme with 3 hours watch and 6 hours free time and so are the rest of the crew. We work well together. In the morning when we wake up, we say to each other: it seems to be a nice cloudy day, but later we will set up sun canvas' and try in all ways to protect us against the sun.

I think this afternoon we will stop the engine and take a swim, before the Humboldt current will lower the ocean temperature from 4 to 5 degrees Celsius to 24.

The only thing we are missing, is to catch a fish!

Report from Bosun Bertram:

One day of sailing is what we had. Unfortunately our little hold-up in paradise lost us our window of opportunity regarding the winds that were supposed to take us west. We had the main sail up to support the genoa in squeezing the last bit of speed out of what little wind we had, before we had to give in, take the sails down and fire up Mr. Perkins, the trusty engine below deck. We are sitting now comfortably in the Panama Current running the engine at low RPM's and still doing between 6-8 knots.

The seas are as flat as can be and we spend the time fishing, playing games and watching movies in the cockpit at night. Fingers crossed for more wind, but till then we are making the best of it!

Local time onboard is 13:30 and our current position is 4,49.41N , 82,19.8W.