Auckland still a long way off for Azzam's crew

Media crew member Nick Dana keeps us up to date with the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team's progress on board Azzam in Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race.

The Mast head zero is deployed, iPods are out, and food is being smashed left and right - all signs of light air sailing on a Volvo 70. It's two weeks at sea today and Auckland still seems pretty far away. Our router now has us arriving even later now that we have hit a light patch in the doldrums. The optimism for a good rest in NZ before the southern ocean is dwindling fast, leaving a nasty taste in everyone's mouth at the end of each watch. There is one last thin shade of hope that we will be running down wind the last couple hundred miles into Auckland, but no one is holding their breath.

Nevertheless we've appreciated a bit of the more mellow variety of sailing the last few days. Especially those battling salt rashes from the four days the 'firehouse hose' was blasting. The bowmen seemed to have copped it the worst, and have made it humorously evident by body painting themselves with 'pseudo crème'.

"Juddy and I share a bunk, so I cannot tell if he is making me itchier or vice a versa. Either way - we are both struggling and are forced to look like body painted idiots just to get to sleep" explains Wade Morgan.

The other on-going battle that we are facing aboard Azzam is our lack of water bottles and - just recently - food bowls. During the four days of high speed reaching it seems that a few our water bottle holders weren't up to the task, thus we lost about three bottles during the sailing. However the main reason for our shortage of bottles and bowls stems from the 'butter fingers' of the Pacific watch (comprised of Wade Morgan and Craig Satterthwaite). The 'Pac-watch' as we call them has now lost a total of four water bottles, one helmet, a serving spoon, and one stainless steel food bowl. All were lost by fumbles of the hand I might add. The rest of the team has yet to decide their punishment.

Lastly it's Bub's birthday tomorrow and the ideas are flying around about what to do if we are still stuck in light air. Perhaps Rob and I will get the time to finally make our piñata that we have been threatening for a few legs now.