Phone call with Pete and Geoff

From Martin:

I had a chat with Geoff and Pete tonight by satellite phone. They want to thank everyone for the messages they have been receiving via this blog, as you'll hear for yourself, they both really do enjoy hearing from family and friends. It's a pretty remote place where they are right now, so they get a lot of enjoyment from your messages.

They also talked about how their days are busy just maintaining everything on the boat and keeping it all in good working order. They escape the equatorial heat with a shade net they have on deck over the cockpit. Apart from the dolphins, they haven't seen much else in the water, except for a huge group of squid that surrounded them one night, many thousands of them apparently. There are lots of small birds around the boat even though they are now some 400 miles from the nearest land.

Pete asked for this the following message to be passed on to Masumi: "Thank you to Masumi for her kind words that make my pillow soft every night"

You can listen to part of that call, if you like. The sound quality is not great, since this was via satellite phone, so voices sound distorted and some words/phrases are clipped a bit.

As you probably know by now, all messages/comments left on the blog are forwarded electronically when the guys are under sail. The messages go by satellite. The system is designed for shorter messages (a couple of sentences for example). It's a bit like pushing an elephant down a rabbit hole - so shorter rather than longer helps, but not a big deal, we get all the messages through and they have enjoyed reading them even though they can't respond to them.