"Around 11 o'clock I was visited by dolphins again; there were about thirty of them this time and they stayed with me for about an hour. I decided to keep rowing, as most of the time they disappear straight away if you stop. You notice that with most larger species of fish - they're curious about the strange rhythmic sound of the rowing and come towards it, but if you stop, that rhythm is disturbed. Change means the unknown for animals and that makes them uneasy. They did seem to be acting pretty over-enthusiastic; I know they like jumping about in boats' backwash, but for them all to try that in the little wake my incredible speed of just over two knots was creating, all pressed in together, was a bit extreme!

Two hours later I suddenly heard a loud crack from my hand-line which was hanging behind the boat. I grabbed hold of it and attempted to reel it in hand-over-hand. I felt quite a bit of resistance and saw the silver glimmer of a fish slowly appearing from the depths. I got it on deck fairly easily, but it was another big 'un: a big-eye tuna one metre long and weighing about 30 kilos. Yesss, finally I've got sushi again, although in this case it could better be described as sashimi. Awesome, I can leave the cold raw stuff off the menu today. I filleted the tuna, which yielded four exquisite slices. I stayed up till two in the morning to polish it all off.

In the evening I had a text from Michel: "Very bad news about the weather situation; we need to start thinking of new escapes; call me ASAP." Michel had been in contact with Meteo Consult and the climate situation in the southern Pacific was looking just awful, especially if you're an ocean rower on route to Australia. A very rare situation has come about that nobody had really seen coming and scientists don't have an explanation for. Normally an ocean rower makes use of the winds and currents, which are almost always in the direction of Australia. Now the whole situation has inexplicably reversed: all the currents are flowing back towards South America and the wind is blowing south. In fact, there's no current left in the area between the New Hebrides and Brisbane at all. This situation is certain to continue for a while yet."

(Image above: currents for the 18th of November. Ralph's position is marked by a little green flag. The Fiji islands are located due south of him.)

"So there's now no possibility of me reaching Australia this year. It's bad news, but I finally feel like I'm getting some recognition for the fact that I've been fighting the winds and currents for weeks and barely getting anywhere. Nobody had noticed anything unusual with the weather charts and statistics and I was constantly being told it was just a normal situation. Now it turns out I was right all along. We'll have to look for other solutions now. But main question is: can I find a fairly large island to leave the boat behind on and pick up the journey again after the hurricane season, when the winds and currents have sorted themselves out again? The only possibility we can see is Fiji, exactly 180 degrees to the south of me at a distance of around 400 miles. I've now got to do all I can to get there. That'll be a tall order with this unpredictable weather, but for the moment I'm getting northerly winds in any case. I immediately changed course by 180 degrees. Yes, Australia is a lost cause this year; I'll leave it till next year. For now I'm focusing all my efforts on Fiji.

Crossing those 300 miles to the island will be no mean feat, however. Firstly, I'm now heading right towards a small archipelago 14 miles in diameter, located 70 miles dead ahead. I'll have to try and get round those first. Shortly afterwards I'

ll be heading across the shipping route from Sydney to San Francisco for the second time, but now I'll be invisible as my Sea Me antenna is broken after all and no-one can see me on the radar any more. Then I'll need to try and approach Fiji, bearing in mind that once I get there the sea is full of reefs for the last 30 miles towards the mainland. The adventure's not over yet.

So I'll close today with an old seafarer's saying: 'the sea is like a cruel mistress: you can love her, you can hate her, but you can never trust her'."
(Image below: currents forecast for the 20th of November. Below that: the currents present at the moment off the coast of Australia. Bottommost image: the currents off the coast of Australia they way they normally look. All images are copyright Meteo Consult. The small image of the Fiji islands was found in The World Factbook from the CIA.)