When in Rome...

We decide to head down to Cottesloe beach on Christmas Day to engage in the national pastime of barbies.

Managing to find a clear spot on the beach we place our bbq carefully and manage to get it lit without the use of firelighters (which had been forgotten :-) - we couldn't borrow any of of anyone as we were the only one's barbequeing on the beach that day?? Sterling work Chris!

The menu of the day was lobster, shrimps, t-bone steaks, sausages and burgers accompanied, naturally, of course by a few beers.

Apparently the temperature was around 38 degrees on the day and, until the breeze kicked in at around 2 o'clock, was a trifle stifling to say the least (especially sitting near a barbie with red hot coals).

Joined also by Nicole off of Qingdao, Ben, Lisa, Chris and myself had an enjoyable day of eating and drinking too much and generally doing what we do on such a day.

I spoke to my mum and my brother today and apparently it's -2 degrees back in the UK and raining, ah well...!

Unfortunately, we are unable to claw back any decent mileage on the boats in front of us and we get into Fremantle at 0643 on the 17th December.

We are all obviously disappointed with our 9th position but all know that we gave our all and couldn't do more than that.

Congratulations to Durban, Western Australia and Qingdao for finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Well done to everyone on the Liverpool'08 yacht, enjoy your Christmas and New Year in Oz and, once the work is done, have a relaxing break!

Close-hauled for the first 11 days of the race (thought this was meant to be downwind?) we finally manage to get the spinnaker up for a few hours.

Still behind the majority of the fleet, we're finding it hard to make up the ground with all the boats to the south of us putting in 12-hour runs as good, if not better than ours.

With us getting lighter winds up here it's either a case of persevere and hope the high pressure system in front and south of us slows them enough or else lose more miles by trying to get to where the other boats are.

We decide to stay northerly.

Lisa decides to get into the festive spirit of the season by constructing an advent calendar. Ben gets to decide who gets to choose each day, it's great for brightening up spirits:

Such are the highs and lows of ocean racing and the hassles of modern technology, we lose our satellite communications on the Friday afternoon. Unable to obtain any updated weather files we draw our own synoptic charts and head on the 'best' course we can.

Unfortunately, by the time we regain communications after 3 days we find we are 100 miles behind the rest of the fleet (with the exception of New York who had to return to Durban for a medivac.

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One of the funniest quotes I have heard for a long time has to go to Alex Rogers for his quote on 'fart tennis':

(Whilst helming) "Who would have thought it, here am I, 40 years old playing fart tennis with an 18-year old. Oh yes! 40 - 15, Rogers to serve, new balls please!"

Classic!

The decision is to follow the rhumb line as best we can rather than heading too far south and this works well for the first week.

The most northerly boat of the fleet it looks to be paying off when we move into first position with a quarter of the race gone.

A few hiccups on the way with Kev deciding to headbutt the mast whilst in the riding belt:

...and in the name of good humour and team spirit, we bid to see who will remove the stitches and what tool to use:

A large procession of boats and people came to see us off from Durban, somewhere in the region of 200 I'm told. Great to see crowds such as this.

All lining up for the start, off we go at 1300 hours.

Not sure what the odds are for him: