"Should I read a chapter then snooze, or snooze then read...."

16:50 UTC 07/08/07 45'58.8N 007'38.8W

Decisions decisions. Owen was struggling with this and other difficult choices today, and it's been a good day like that for all of us. The wind has strengthened a little, but is now generally behind us and we are broad reaching at top speed in a nice long swell that, whilst not exactly calm, isn't uncomfortable either. We covered 136 miles from in the 24 hours to 9am this morning, and look to better that again today. So far, Neptune has been kind.

We had a close encounter with a fishing boat last night. The crew have a standing instruction to wake me if any boat is within 2 miles, and I got a call at about 2am to check out a boat about 2 miles off. As I put on my lifejacket and went up into the cockpit, it became clear that this boat was more like 400 yards away, and we were going to pass just a few hundred yards behind. She was showing the green over white light of a trawler and I could see her gear trawling nets out behind, so we rapidly bore away. We'd always have missed her, but I prefer a bigger comfort margin than that. Once back on course, we held a little crew meeting to work out how we got so close and decided that the lessons were that being used to looking at big container ships and tankers all night, the lights of a little trawler look like a big ship further away if you're not careful. Also, the guys had been picking up radar contacts then looking for the lights, and that should be the other way around - use the radar to check what you see, not to see what to check. Within 2 miles, boats get lost in the wave clutter so the Mk1 eyeball is key. The binoculars were on deck, but they hadn't used them, preferring to nominate a radar contact instead. A reminder not to rely on the technology too much.

There was a lot of traffic about up till then, but after the trawler we saw almost nothing for the rest of the night, and only now, at 5pm are we starting to see traffic again as we near the main routes for shipps coming up from Africa towards northern Europe. Tonight will probably see a few ships around, but it's actually easier to see them at night rather than looking for grey ships in a light grey sky against a dark grey blue sea.

The sea is that beautiful deep water blue colour - not the turquoise of tropical islands but a deep blue-black-green. The waves roll in as great four metre high swells, and we sweep up the side of one and slide away down the reverse face. It's mesmerising, to clip on your harness, wander up to the front of the boat and stand, rocking with the motion of the boat and watching the waves roll under us. We are in water 3 miles deep, over 200 miles from the nearest land, in our self-sufficient little 50 foot boat, and our world moves with the ocean.

So, time to have dinner - chicken with creamy bacon penne - although that might be slightly altered as the crew had a craving for bacon sandwiches as they came out of their seasickness yesterday, so we'll have to improvise a little.

Tonight's cocktail - a 'flat earth kir royal'. We've no champagne, so it'll be white wine (flat) with ribena and every sailor knows there's an edge (to the world.....)

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