It is true to say that time has been the primary marker for our voyage. Of course we are also ticking off the nautical miles and charting our progress which I am happy to report is now substantial as we tear along at 5-6 knots again at last. However, the time factor always looms large: 2 weeks now since we left Mindelo; nearly a month since we left Las Palmas and hopefully only about 5 or 6 days until we reach dry land in Saint Lucia. The days are divided into our 4 hourly watches which we rotate. With the time being one of our few absolutes on this trip I was somewhat taken aback when Skipper started playing with the clocks onboard and actually moving the hands! I felt the foundations of my tiny 41 foot world being shaken...what are you doing? Now, had I taken the sensible albeit totally unadventurous option of flying to St. Lucia, those nice airline people would see to it that my body-clock was gently adjusted to the local time during my flight by subtly adjusting the meal/sleep times. Actually changing the hands on my time-piece when I arrived would be my only time concern. Onboard Resolute, Skipper was seeing to it all it seems as we voyage across the Atlantic changing the clocks and watches by half hour degrees at certain stages to ensure we would be at the correct UTC-4 on arrival. But somehow Gilly-mate found this tinkering with the very beat of her existence on board to be disconcerting....almost Orwellian. The innocent question of "what's the time?" could suddenly be answered with some vaguely scary "whatever time you want it to be...." sort of answer. No. In this transitory parallel universe on board I feel I need some absolutes so now we have labels on clocks telling us what deviation from the norm (UK time- obviously)they represent. There are limits Skipper.....and tinkering with time itself is one of them in my book.