Things are looking a bit better now. The wind has picked up and we are back to some nice downwind sailing.

We rounded the bottom of Japan last night, and now have begun our Pacific crossing.

It is also warming up slowly and I have been able to shed a layer or two in the daytime (though there are still a fair few left to go before we get to the nice t-shirt and shorts sailing).

I am definitely more into warm weather sailing. It is such a pfaff putting on 3 base layers, a mid layer, oilies, gloves, hat, balaclava etc, and even wearing all of that I felt like my hands were going to fall off early yesterday morning when we were doing a few manouvres.

We are quite short handed this leg, so I have been doing jobs all over the boat - helming, snake pit and even on the bow.... I had my first experience as the no. 1 when hanking on the sail - though perhaps it is pretty sad to admit to that having sailed so far!