Bobbing and flapping… 2 knots, 2,5 knots and back to 2 knots speed… There is still no wind but the sky has turned a bit cloudier so I kept looking up all day to see if the clouds were moving – nothing … The weather forecast said that I should have wind right … Around noon I thought I would go crazy when Guppy started to drift because without wind the rudder is useless, and this happening after the little progress we had made… Apparently I still have to learn to be more patient… So with no winds and no water washing over the deck, I keep busy with small jobs on the boat. The steering wheel has too much sliding space on its axis and I tried everything to solve the problem but I feel it still is unreliable. Luckily, Guppy also has a tiller so I can steer her pretty well this way too. The bottom part of the Genoa is much worn out by the sun and now has small holes that I stitched or taped. After my bad experience with the spinnaker pole and tape back in Fiji -when everything became glued together- I came up with the idea to wrap rags around the sheets and to use the tape only for the ends. As far as I can tell this works much better. I still have 1873 nautical miles to go to Darwin [3469 kilometres or 2156 land miles] while Sogno d’Oro who is running ahead of me has good winds…. Well, I will have good winds at some point and then I will catch up on Henk before I sail into the Torres Strait.

Laura