Squalls from the East

Hi all,
 
Looking out of the hatch as I type this I can see Dominic on Temenos several miles behind me as we both race southwards at 16 to 17 knots. The air is crystal clear and the sea is bright blue, and Bahrain Team Pindar is going well. I am now reaching with the wind blowing from 90 degrees to our course.
 
Last night I was more upwind, as it has been ever since the Doldrums, and this morning I went through a sequence of squalls, coming from the East. Each squall would take the wind from 14 knots to 20, sometimes 25 knots. After the last one, the wind shifted, and what was once almost a beat, was now a reach, and Temenos was on my tail. The air was thick with rain and spray in the squalls so I was wearing a Gecko helmet as used by the RNLI RIB teams to be able to see more clearly.
 
It looked like these squalls brought the new wind from the East and Temenos, being further to the East, had gotten the wind first, her boatspeed going from 12 to 16 knots because of the better wind angle and the wind increase. Also this has benefited Safran who would have received this wind shift even earlier, though to be fair, Safran has been going like a train for the last few days.
 
Up ahead the leaders seemed to get the wind about the same time and we are now all heading south at high speed. Each time I do a computer simulation of our route (routing) with new weather data, it shows the course being more and more west to get around the High and into the Westerlies of the Southern Ocean. It looks like in about 5 days we should be around the high pressure if all goes well. Then it's first one to the ice waypoint at 42 south.
 
Even though it's an enormous ocean I have seen other boats during the race, Ecover near Madeira, Roxy three times and this is the second time I have seen Dominic. I have talked to all 3 boats and it is great to chat just for a few minutes about the extraordinary experiences we are all having out here on the Vendee Globe.
 
That’s all, it was a very full on morning with all the squalls and the setting up for the reach, reefs in, reefs out, and now it's time to catch up on some late lunch of Kung Po Chicken. But first reef out again as the wind has dropped slightly, I don’t want to see Temenos getting bigger out of the rear window!
 
Cabin Temp 31 degrees and water temp 26.1 at 1054S 3008W.
 
Seen one gannet yesterday with bright red feet, a storm petrel, and several very large flying fish.
 
Brian