Yesterday around half past 9 am when Catrine asked me if I wasn't supposed to wake up, I told her that I wouldn't because I had decided to allow myself some extra time in bed since it was my birthday. For a short moment Catrine looked confused, then she laughed and told me that it was not, it was only the 7^th of May. Hmm, she was right, sometime during the night I had mixed up the days. That's what happens on the Atlantic. This morning though, the 8^th of May, it actually was my birthday, and when I started to stretch in my bed, awoken early by a chocolate smell the girls sang Happy Birthday for me. I was given hot chocolate to drink in the bed and a nice card that entitles me to a dinner when we get ashore, including desert of course. After breakfast the wind started to blow, not a lot but enough for us to hoist the sails. Our new secret weapon to get to the Azores faster and without running out of fuel is to hoist the small headsail separately with the spinnaker halyard and spread it to windward on one of the spinnaker poles, at the same time we have the normal headsail and the mainsail up. Right now we are broad reaching and the extra sail make us go about 1 knot faster, and it also makes Cantare more stable. It has been a sunny day which I have spend on deck enjoying the easy sailing. In the afternoon Sofia called us all to the cockpit where we had chocolate cake with Swedish flags and played a game. Now while I'm writing this my dinner whish is being carried out, pizza with tuna (tinned, no luck with the fishing yet) and pineapple. The wind is stronger now, we are doing a bit more than 6 knots, we are on the Atlantic Ocean in my favourite boat on my 26^th birthday. What more can a girl ask for? A bit fewer Men of war maybe, swimming from the front of the boat to the back yesterday was thrilling, a bit like Russian roulette. We would like to thank all of you who answered Catrine's whish for more information about the strange animals called Man of war. Being very beautiful and interesting looking you want to pick them up and inspect them at a closer range, knowing the impossibility of this want makes them even more fascinating. How cute they are bobbing on the water around us! I would also like to thank all of you who have sent best wishes on the satellite phone this day when I became one year older and hopefully a tiny bit wiser. / The old Captain