When I was sailing CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I soon learned that as soon as I began a passage I began deteriorating.  Not just my skin, which was exposed to sun and salt water, but my body.  Little strength was require to sail the little boat; it was almost impossible to stand; there was no place to walk; and my diet was limited.  So I ended each passage weaker than when I began it, and had repeatedly to build myself back up again. 

        I am beginning to think that this may be true of all passages, though not to so great an extent.  Sailing THE HAWKE OF TUONELA I seldom have to exert myself more than a few minutes a day.  There are exceptions, particularly in storms or when something breaks; and I do use my upper body winching in sails; but mostly it is a sedentary life.

        All this came vividly to mind when I resumed my exercise routine.  For new readers this includes stretching, 150 push-ups and crunches in sets of 70-40-40, 100 side leg raises each leg, and 250 knee bends in sets of 60-40-150.  When ashore I try to do this three times a week; and in normal years when I do not sail as much as I have since leaving New Zealand in April 2008, I do the routine at least one hundred times.  Last year I managed only seventy; and so far this year only twelve, three of them in the last week.

        My weight hasn’t changed.  I look the same.  But the pain eloquently proved that I have weakened. 

        I did manage to get through the entire routine the first time I tried, though with rather poor form.

        Each subsequent time has become easier.  After a while exercising doesn‘t hurt at all.

        I expect I’ll get to that point just about the time I fly back to the boat.

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        If you have read the entries about my time in Panama, you know that because I did not lie to the Canal Authority admeasurer that THE HAWKE OF TUONELA can do eight knots under power, I had to post a bond of almost $1600, twice the usual bond, with extra charges for a delay fee, additional launch service for the advisors, and a mooring fee.

        You are required to pay the transit fee of $609 in cash.  The bond is put on a credit card.

        During the transit, I caused no delays and considered challenging the extra charges.  However I have just received in the mail my receipt from the Panama Canal Authority for $609, and they have never run the credit card charge form I signed.  I may be wrong, but I believe that they never will.

        Not long before I sailed from Opua last year I had the rigger there replace all my standing rigging, which cost about $2000.  (All prices are in U.S. dollars.)

        When in Durban a strand was found broken on one diagonal shroud, I paid the rigger there $800 to replace all four upper and lower diagonal shrouds.  THE HAWKE OF TUONELA has a two-spreader ring.

        When the starboard lower diagonal broke in the Atlantic Ocean, I paid the rigger in Antigua $400 to replace it.

        When the port lower diagonal broke in the Pacific, I directed the rigger in Raiatea to replace it and the two upper diagonals.  Although there was no sign that anything was wrong with the uppers, I no longer trust the work done in Durban.  I have just learned that the charge will be $1000.  This being French Polynesia, where everything is extremely expensive, I expected it would be more.

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        The photograph is of trade wind clouds astern at sunset somewhere in the Pacific.