For my 33rd birthday I got...

On Saturday I spent my 33rd birthday just off the Oregon coast on a 68ft racing yacht... Not the usual state of affairs, and to celebrate, I got to go out on the spinnaker pole not once, but twice; the first time under the guise of having a go when the weather was calm, although Tom then sneakily gave me the emergency guy to attach as well, followed ten minutes later by a call to peel from the medium weight to the light weight kite. As I still had the climbing harness on from earlier endeavours, that was me again, spiking the old kite so that it could be dropped and attaching the new one for a hoist. All actually not too scary, you get hoisted up on a halyard so there's no real climbing involved, just hanging on to the downhaul so that you don't get swung around too much.

In more traditional birthday spirit, there was chocolate cake as well, and pressies including honorary membership to the 'Piss and Moan about Anything and Everything' club from Jenn, my mother watch partner on the pacific leg, whose coffee and brownie whinging sessions made all 31 horrendous days seem just that little bit better. Plus an exra hour and a half in bed during one of the night watches which may not seem like much but when you're snatching sleep in two hour intervals is worth an indescrible amount.

Other than that? Loads of wildlife; a couple of orcas (killer whales) surfacing next to the boat yesterday, and before that a giant pod of dolphins, probably a couple of hundred, making the sea look as if it were boiling over with them. We're still languishing in sixth place, partly due to having had a giant clump of seaweed wrapped round our keel for a few days. But, best news of all, should be back to shorts and tshirt weather in the next 48 hours. Hurray.