It's been a tough couple of days here on the Blue boat. Having to watch the rich get richer is never a nice thing, unless of course you are at the front of the fleet! Puma and Ericsson 4 seem to be having a great match race at the head of the fleet which leaves us looking longingly at the position reports wishing we were up there too - something that we know that we are more than capable of but have not yet had the chance to show.

We are still trying hard to make up the miles after our pit stop just over a day ago, and although we have to be patient, it is proving hard. We are still clawing back the miles however and although it is slower than we would have liked we need to try take encouragement from that right now and not think too hard about being 8th on the leaderboard.

Things got a little tougher still this morning when the A2 blew up leaving us without our big running spinnakerl, but in the few hours that have passed since this has happened Daryl (Wislang) and Jordi (Calafat), our onboard sail makers have done an amazing job of getting it back together in record time. Hopefully before long we will be able to see the quality of their handiwork when we re-hoist it again which will get us back to full speed.

Other than that life on board is good. Everyone is getting into the rhythm of being back offshore despite our fist leg being punctuated by a short stop. It feels good to be back out at sea again and I am surprised at how easily the miles are slipping by. The watermaker water for some reason tastes much better than I ever remember; I just wish I could say the same about the freeze dried food! That said, today was a good day... Spaghetti Bolognaise for lunch, if you have to eat anything freeze dried, that isn't a bad start! So full, and my stomach content for now, I am going to get a few minutes sleep until the next position report arrives and we start planning our next move to get back up the fleet.

Cheers,

SiFi (Simon Fisher - navigator).

Visit www.volvooceanrace.org for all the latest news!

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008 with in-port racing, it will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the history of the race.

Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world's premier yacht race for professional racing crews.