ITS SO HOT

Day three of our ten / 11 day passage to Fiji from Bora Bora. And the heat just overwhelms everything. I don't remember ever being this hot or this thirsty - you need to drink litres and litres of water just not to pass out. My forearms arms leaving puddles on the nav desk I type. The. wind is really light - 8 - 10 knots behind us and I'm being mean with the generator and therefor any aircon until I know we have enough fuel to get us there . We need it for generation as well as propulsion. We've got the trade. wind sail up at the moment, and are slipping along at 5 - 6 knots. Not great, but every hour sailed is another hour cooling later on. In the meantime we all just sweat. And sweat.

There are three of us on board - Ruth , James and myself. Conall was meant to do the passage, but given that we had to delay our departure to get the water maker up and running ( God Bless James ), I couldn't guarantee that we would get there I time for him to make a very important - and very happy -family appointment back home.

Poor James has the dog watch - 1:am to 5:00 am, I do 9:pm to 1:00 am and. Ruth does 5:00 am to 9:00 am. We are running solo watches, so it's great that Ruth is mastering her own watch now.

We haven't seen a boat - or much else except for three birds since we left. Just the Big Blue - sea and sky. Ruth and I jumped in yesterday for a dip to cool down - inky indigo blue, down, down and down below us. We didn't linger.

The day is short - oddly busy, with little time to read or idle. Ruth has filled in any spare time I might have by trying to rid me of my even sparer tyre (s) . She can be so harsh.

James has spent the day upside down in the generator bilge repairing an exhaust hose - in about 35 degrees. Hats off to him.

This is the most solitary sail that we've done. The fleet hasn't left Bora Bora yet. It is peaceful. The weather is clam, perhaps a bit too calm, but I'd take that all day long rather than the alternative.

Liam