Weds 4th Race 3 Day 9

Despite my grumblings about the hours, we had a great night watch last night.  We were steadily busy throughout.  The helming is getting more challenging – but it's nice to work hard for the course and we get everything ready for an early spinnaker hoist. There has been a decided lack of stars so far on our trip down from Rio, which is disappointing. Either the moon has been too bright or on most occasions it's been a cloudy night.  I still haven’t seen the Southern Cross yet and have been looking out for it for weeks!  Despite the cloud and the odd bit of mizzle  (Vic's term for a cross between drizzle and mist) I stayed remarkably dry... until about 10 minutes before the end of watch.  Mike B and I were rigging the pole at the bow when Duncan (on the helm) caught a larger than average wave and completely doused us from head to foot in cold South Atlantic!  Bloody typical!
We are still hanging onto the lead. Cork and Singapore are both only about 14 – 16 miles behind us now – it's a real game of cat & mouse and makes the sailing far more exciting.  All the talk is about our six hourly speed averages, nailing the course and trimming the sails to make sure we eke the maximum speed-over-ground we can.  There's still a long way to go to Cape Town but we're doing everything we can to make sure we get there first!