Wind direction - SE-E-NE-N (Take your pick)
Wind strength - "not much"
Barometer - 1008 mb and steady

Another parking lot. Kevvy and Frankie babe reckon they've been parking before (together?) but not like this. We've stumbled into a big hole of not much breeze. Monday morning at 2.00am the stop sign came out, and since then we've just flopped along for only 48 miles heading east (an average of 1.65 knots). It's all part of the package and I'm not about to complain. Right now with a calm sea we could be just off Redhead or waddling our way to the Reef. Yesterday morning I did some odd jobs, tweaking the rigging, minor sail repairs, etc and for the first time in a while, I was able to sit around the cockpit in comfort.

Yesterday saw the launching of the sailing vessel "Stubby" complete with my message in the bottle and two 5 cent Aussie coins. To create SV "Stubby", I had to drink it's contents and it was so good that I had two more. Alcohol is not sought by me out here as I get a natural high but the occasional one is good.

Currently I'm reading Schindler's List. It's so well written. What a hell of a nightmare the subject material is. Why do human beings have to carry out such atrocities on each other?

A couple of new records -

1. Saturday midday saw the barometer at a new low of just 987.5 mb for the trip
2. Sunday at 4.45pm the air temperature was only 3 degrees.

I've had the thermometer tucked in behind the spray dodger. Now I've relocated it to the open where it can get the effect of the breeze, so we will see if that makes much difference.

Last Sunday saw the end of our first 4 weeks, so some progressive statistics ..... had travelled 3785 nm on GPS log at an average of 5.62 knots. My journey at that point is 17% complete and at that rate, the trip will take 162 days.

The media of Newcastle have taken "Sal", Kevvy, Frankie babe and myself to heart and as a result, you can hear us as follows - 2NURFM with Judith and Bob (Monday afternoons at approximately 3.30pm), KOFM with David and Tanya (Wednesday mornings straight after the 5.30am news), and 2HD with Luke Grant (Friday morning at 7.45am). NBN Television also run updates from my e-mails as well as doing voice interviews.

Thank you one and all for your support,

Tony Mowbray