We are presently 1,500nm from any land and as far as we know, this is as remote as it gets. We’ve had the most fabulous sailing and now in our twelfth day, we’ve only motored for 1 hour since leaving the Galapagos Islands.

The story so far, starting with the not so good. Despite the rest of the OWR fleet catching Tuna, Wahoo, Mahi-Mahi and Sailfish, Amelie’s skipper managed to land a tuna which leapt overboard when it spied the humane killer in the form of a bottle of rum heading in it’s direction. We identified it later as a Blue-finned Tuna, displaying beautiful, shimmering colours and weighing approximately 7kgs. We haven’t had a bite since , he/she has obviously warned his/her friends. Each morning we clear up the carnage on the decks - dead flying fish and squid that have launched themselves onto Amelie overnight.

Another minor setback has been “Wally” (hydrogenerator). The stainless steel fitting holding Wally to the transom has failed. We tried to jury rig Wally back in place using some vectra which gave us an extra 12 hours before we had to lift Wally. We are looking forward to finding a welder who can fabricate something more substantial. We are needing to run the generator for 4 hours a day instead of 2, therefore using more diesel. You can see from the photo that the welding on 2 of the 3 lugs through which the pin fits has failed and the straight pin is now very bent!

Apart from this everything on board has been working well. Our sleep patterns are tuned into life at sea and we’ve been taking turns in preparing supper with Debbie always doing the washing up......nothing changes there I suppose!

The weather has been fair with the odd rain shower that has washed the salt from the stainless steel, decks and rinsed the sails.

The Pacific is known as the peaceful ocean however we have experienced some huge swells and the odd wave turns Amelie into a 53’ surfboard.

The last few nights have not been dark since we are in a full moon phase and it restricts the quality of stargazing. The rising of the moon in the past has caused alarm as initially it resembles a huge, illuminated vessel on the horizon which is obviously not depicted on AIS (Automatic Identification System) and radar.

Sunsets have been occluded by cloud but the dying rays give us a beautiful display of coloured lights raining behind and through the clouds. One evening the setting sun looked as if there was a huge fire in the ocean. We experience dusk here unlike off the African coast and sailing across the Atlantic. In those areas, daylight and darkness changed like a flick of a switch.

Trade wind clouds are distinctive and the easiest way to describe them, is to watch the start of “The Simpsons” - those clouds are trade wind clouds. We have “Simpson” skies all the time now we are 10 degrees south. The wind strength and direction are consistent (east to south-east, 15-20kts); the twin headsails (Yankees) are flying and we are heading directly to the Marquesas - checking in at Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva around the 5th/6th of April.

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter.