A very strange area we sail in. Last night was just horrible, lots of big clouds and plenty of rain. The first five minutes the boys on deck thought it was quite enjoyable, to have a fresh shower, but then they got cold.

The worse thing was that the breeze disappeared completely for about 2.5 hours. The Ruskies who were just 5 miles behind us and 10 miles further east, sailed right passed without stopping. We did many sail changes as the breeze went twice a complete 360 degree turn around, before settling in again a bit.

Dinner tonight was not a success for some of us. We had mincepot, but hardly any mince to be found. Jono (Jonathan Swain) reckons he can sail around the world without any teeth, as a lot food we have is like a baby food.

We had to find a mix of food, the spicy food is made in New Zealand and more for the likes of the international guys, the 'baby food' is from the Netherlands and more orientated for the Spanish blokes. As well Xabi (Xabier Fernandez) got a present didn't know about. His wife had given a package to Gabry (Gabriele Olivo). He got a small plastic horse and a baby suit, maybe a hint mom is pregnant? But as well his wife had packed a little flagon of rum, which Xabi shared with Laurent (Laurent Pages), who has his birthday today.

As well big congratulations to our CEO Pedro Campos who won with the Telefónica team a world championship in Lanzarote. For the Telefónica team this is 12+1 world title. Why 12+1, there was a famous motorbike rider in Spain, Angel Nieto, who was very superstitious, so when he won his 13th title he called it 12+1, everybody is Spain knows this term.

Bouwe Bekking - skipper.

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.