Barometer - 995 mb and rising (from a low of 990 mb 11 hours ago)
Air temperature - 5 degrees
Wind - SW at 30 knots
Cape Horn is 385 nm away

KOOEE (COMMUNICATIONS) ..... anyone out there?

If I can maintain an average of 5.5 knots I should be there on Monday at 8.00 am AEDST. A huge thank you to my daily sponsors who opted to support my rounding of the Horn – Day #50 Aluminium Specialties, Day #51 RetireInvest Morisset, and Day #52 DLB Services - Air Filtration.

How do I feel about the Horn? I feel as if it is some sort of a wily seductress. At times she gives me great hope when I have a pleasant breeze and a good sea, allowing me to head straight for her at speed. Then, at the blink of an eye she's left the bedroom, with her goes the breeze and I am becalmed. Upon her return she decides that my reward for being patient cannot be made available to me too quickly, so she belts me with a 45 knot southerly to remind me who's in charge. Am I losing it?

Yesterday and last night saw very slow progress as we managed to find another carpark. In one 10¼ hour period we logged 6 nautical miles on the GPS and then about 10 hours ago, we get whammied and down to just a smidge of #4 headsail. EVERYTHING is in the extreme down here. I would like to round in daylight and hopefully my seductress will be benevolent just once, and allow me to get close enough to her to take some photos.

The repairs have had a good test and are holding up well, but I do find it hard to relax completely with respect to them.

I can't believe that today is the first day of the Southern Hemisphere Summer. In the beautiful City of Lake Macquarie (you should all visit if you haven't been there) yesterday, I'm told, it was very, very hot. Here it never got above 7 degrees!

While it was quiet a day or two ago, I tensioned and greased the steering cables and can report they look okay. I also end-for-ended some of the control lines for the Monitor self-steering system to shift the chafe point. I ripped a heap of skin off the top of my middle finger on my right hand and bruised it when a cockpit locker lid fell shut on it. With the cold temperature and all, I was forced to utter a moderate expletive. The cold is all penetrating. This morning, I dropped the mainsail because it was blowing so hard and in the 5 minutes or so that it took for me to lash it to the boom, my hands were in agony. I got down below and somehow got the stove going, put the kettle on and then clasped the kettle. The pain was so intense that I was moaning and whinging like a big girls blouse for at least 5 minutes. It is particularly vicious in the thumbs for some reason.

Anyhow, I'm pushing on to meet my wily seductress face to face. Are you coming along?

Take care,

Tony Mowbray