7 am everyone is up. We’ve obviously left our usual latino rhythm with late lunches, late dinners and small and late brekkies for the natural rhythm of the sun. From 5am onwards it’s light out there, so 7am doesn’t feel too bad. After cuddles on the aft-deck and pledges to the dolphins to come and visit us again today, we have some fruit followed by reading time. 9 am the boys rediscover their toys they haven’t played with in a long time. For two hours it’s all about Lego and exploring its boundaries with daddy, while mum packs up yesterday’s laundry, waters the little veggie-pot-‘garden’ on the aft-deck, sands of a few fibreglass fillings for which there just wasn’t enough time anymore in Malta, continues on bits of varnish and comes up with the idea of skipping Crete this time around and hop more northern islands instead. The bit of wind that there has been has pushed us further north than what we thought we’d end up, so why not go with it. This will even mean we’ll have less miles to get under our keel before we hit the Dalyan Delta in Turkey for the yoga retreat later this month.

11am: After a mid-morning snack (thanks granny – your homemade jam tastes even better out here than usual!) it’s music time. Singing, dancing, guitar, whistles, maracas, pots & pans – everything and everyone gets a go all through to lunch time (light Caprese Salad with a some Pan Catalan for the boys and their never ending appetite). 2pm: Everyone’s having a siesta. We wake up to the sweetest honey melon we’ve ever tasted. Delicious. Then the boys are allowed their hour or so of digital time. It’s Frosty the Snowman and Thomas the Tank Engine today, after a family episode of Mr Bean. During this time mum & dad have a swim for the daily boat-belly check. Everything seems fine. We scrape a few more barnacles off, swear we’ll do the anti-foul in Turkey instead of Tunisia (yep, cruising life requires utmost flexibility and adjustment to ever changing circumstances!) and give the SSB another unsuccessful trial. We have to get a better grounding for it. The aft-pulpit doesn’t seem to do the job. But for now, I’m not sure how to use the sea (apparently the best grounding) yet. Will find out and continue my lecture through our techy books later. Then the engine goes back on as the wind’s completely died off in the after-noon. Today’s new surprise item of arts and crafts is new play dough. For passages, I try and stock a new little activity surprise for the kids for each day. It keeps us busy till almost dinner time. With an early start, we also have an early finish to the day. Around 8pm the sun sets. We read night-time stories, sing a few songs and then the boys are sound asleep. Pablo and I drop into our night watches and that’s another 24 hours at sea past fast and 100 nm closer to Greece.