We have finally escaped the Med despite being parked for hours off Gibraltar. This was frustrating as we had built up good leads over Puma and Telefónica Black but they were able to sail right up to us in the dying breeze.

We seem to be struggling for speed relative to others when the wind shuts down. As of this morning the top 5 boats could all see each other as we gybed on the shifts heading South down the African coast. We can no longer see Ericsson 4 but Ericsson 3 is just ahead as are Puma and Tel Black

Everybody is being very cagey covering every move or sail change. Puma and Telefónica Black seem to be very fast downwind in the light and they have consistently sailed away from us. We will have to be patient and hope our turn comes. Everybody on board is well rested now despite lots of frantic tacking and gybing and all the associated 'stacking' of gear and sails in the Med.

Sometimes it feels more like we work for a removals company than a sailing team as we spend large amounts of time carting gear from one side of the boat to another - at least it will get easier as we use up the supplies!

Life onboard is pretty pleasant with light winds and no water on deck. We are carrying out a few minor running repairs and checking the boat over. It appears that Justin (Justin Slattery/IRL) and Animal (Andrew Mclean/NZL) have fixed the J4 halyard problem and we have got to the bottom of the keel issue that bugged us at the start.

The only other thing of note was a stowaway passenger we had which was a robin (red breast) that flew into the boat and has been living in the galley. This was amusing for a few hours but we have now lost him and nobody saw him leave. The last sighting was of him flying aft towards the nav station. Hopefully he flew away for all our sakes.

Ian Walker - 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.