Received two phone messages from Ralph this morning. Below is his report:

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve found the circuit board belonging to a charger that got broken in my crash by Atafu. After sanding it down and spraying it a bit I managed to fit it to one of the broken chargers, and by a stroke of luck I was able to charge my camera’s battery. So I can take photos again for a while.

The bad news is that I went east again yesterday. It’ll be a hard slog getting back on the right course. And, most annoyingly, the first iPod’s battery is flat.

Turned on the automatic tracking system yesterday evening using the special supply of batteries I’ve got for it. Normally they last at least a fortnight, but sadly these ran down in just one-and-a-half hours. It was Sunday yesterday, which is the day I change my socks; they don’t last more than a week as the heels get completely worn by then. A huge wave hit the boat as I was cooking some delicious noodle soup, so I got hot soup all over my chest. Looks nice and red now, and I imagine the skin will be peeling off by the morning.

In the evening I heard a huge bang at the rear of the boat, which then occurred several more times. I had no idea what it was. As I was cooking something again late in the evening it suddenly seemed as if the burner had run dry all at once. Such a strange hissing sound. I took a good look at the burner, but the sound wasn’t coming from there. Looking around me, I suddenly became aware of a huge family of what looked to me like pilot whales. They were making the hissing sound with their blowholes. I’ve never seen such a big group all together – there must’ve been at least 50 of them.

When I opened the hatch today in a bid to fetch some water from a compartment I was confronted by a thick stinking cloud of steam. The Chinese salamis had begun to rot, producing an awful smell. I chucked them straight overboard and cleaned everything up. Luckily the remaining food was unaffected.

The photo below shows a number of pilot whales, the kind Ralph saw about 50 of.