In Tune - IN TUNE Fri 14th December. "Houston, we have a problem."

A clear starry night with lots of shooting stars, and mild enough weather to do night watch in shorts last night.

This morning, however, all that changed. I was entering the log and suddenly we lost all power. Every effort to check led to the conclusion that all batteries were dead flat. This meant that we had no instruments, no water from taps, no engines, no auto-helm, no nothing. Just a sail boat - wind and sails, just like Columbus. We ran all sorts of tests, and to save you the long boring diagnosis, we think that one battery was totally stuffed, and dragged down the others. We had one thing in our favour - the solar panels were charging, and we had sunshine. So, led by Steve and Martin, we separated four batteries from the bank, leaving only two connected, believing that the solar would charge two batteries more quickly. So we had a cup of tea, and hand-steered on one hour shifts.

By mid afternoon, we thought we would try to start the engine. If it did not start, we would have dragged a lot of power from the batteries, and set us back hours as the sun was getting lower in the sky. We were not looking forward to hand steering all night. So we crossed our fingers and tried. It started! A roar of approval went up from the crew. So we re-connected all batteries and ran the engine to charge them all afternoon. A short while later, as if to join in the celebration, a pod of dolphins came alongside the boat and proceded to do acrobatics.

Dinner tonight is fajitas, courtesy of Martin. (He doesn't know how favoured he is for Geraldine to allow him to use "her" kitchen.