“Following a rainy night a stiff wind persisted from the south accompanied by annoyingly-steep waves which made it difficult to row westward across the waves. It was time for the parachute anchor again, which fixes you in place in the water’s current so you don’t drift off too far, to the north in this case. That turned out to be a bad idea, though. The parachute anchor got the bow nicely in line with the waves, but that just meant I was now going north-east at the same speed – an even worse course, which meant I had to get straight back to work hauling the para-anchor back in.”

“Underway for five days now, and I’m still rowing in circles near Fiji. I’m really developing a loathing for La Niña, which is the little sister of the phenomenon’s big brother El Niño. Well, as far as I’m concerned big bro can come along and sort out his little sis, because she’s a real bitch compared to him!

I turned the Kenwood stereo up to full volume, blasting out “I am the sexiest man in Jamaica” at full power from the 2 x 150-watt speakers and completely drowning out the sound of the wind and the waves. A few minutes later a small group of dolphins came along. One of them kept its head above water for a moment and looked at me, as if to say, “To hell with La Niña!” See, at least he understands where I’m coming from, that old cow can get stuffed, and in no time at all I was sitting there with a big smile on my face and a feeling of satisfaction, which lasted for the rest of the day as I rowed against the waves.

In the evening I thought it was time to go fishing. I’ve got a lot of new fishing tackle with me and decided to start with the most advanced: a small rubber squid with a little LED light to attract fish at night. I had high expectations of that one – this I wanted to see.

I chucked the stroboscope into the water and I have to say, it really didn’t look good. A few lost-looking squid did take a brief look, but then disappeared in less time than it took them to work out it wasn’t real. Disco lights underwater and on the surface there’s some idiot yelling about being the sexiest man in Jamaica… doesn’t exactly seem like the formula for success if you want to catch a fish. Perhaps tuna will think differently, though, so I hung out the line for a few hours.

On the day before my departure a friend gave me two blinkers he didn’t want as he’d bought the wrong ones – they were meant for squid. The ocean is swarming with squid, though, so I thought I’d try them out. Michael (Moes), I have to say it was a brilliant idea of yours, with some truly fantastic results. After three minutes my reel started rattling and there was the first squid, weighing in at half a kilo. Nearly an hour later I had three of the same weight, which I thought would be enough for breakfast so I reeled my line in again.”

“At the end of the night the wind turned to the south-east, so I got it diagonally at my back. Finally I was able to row a slanting course westward at wind force 4 and two to three-metre-high waves. In the morning I’ll just have to clean the three squid, marinade them in soya sauce and add some chilli, then fry them very briefly to keep them tender and make sure they don’t go all rubbery like the way they’re so often served up in Holland. A great breakfast to start off the day, finally one in which everything went well and I plodded on towards Australia at a decent speed with an even bigger smile on my face. 22 miles in nine hours. Let’s hope it stays the same for a few days.

I’m seeing more and more flying fish around me, so the bigger ones will be around too.  The Sea Me active radar alarm went off yet again this morning. It’s been doing that quite regularly now as I’m still so close to Fiji – lots of local fishing boats in the area – so I took no heed of it until I suddenly saw a tanker thundering past. Golly, if I see one more fishing boat now I’ll have seen just as much shipping traffic since Fiji as in the 201 days before I got there!

My eating rhythm has changed for this phase too, and I’m very pleased with the new one. In the morning and afternoon I eat bread with fish from a tin with a bit of onion, garlic and pepper – delicious. I’ve also brought 320 precooked wraps with me, to have with a glass of powdered milk. It’s a bit like the kind of breakfasts you might get in a Pakistani guesthouse, but oh well. Having any kind of milk or bread product in the middle of an ocean can’t be too bad.

The sun had just set and I went to try fishing again. After an hour the score was back at three, only now there was a lot more squid for my effort as the first one weighed in at one kilo. I’m going to enjoy having the same breakfast tomorrow as well. And just as I was going to reel in the line, a king-size one weighing three kilos managed to get itself hooked.”