VOLVO OCEAN DIARY Week 21 Leg Five Qingdao to Rio:WE'VE MADE massive gains and are now back in touch with the leaders, having made up more than 250 miles in the last week. We passed Fiji at the weekend and this was really the first time on this leg that the fleet had to make key, strategic decisions. Miles could easily have been won or lost by taking the best or worst route past the islands.

We made the right choice by staying east of Fiji and, as it turned out, the leading yacht, Ericsson 4, and their sister yacht, Ericsson 3, decided to come with us.

The other teams, Puma and Telefonica Blue, went straight through the middle of the islands – a high-risk strategy, but they got away with it.

Our skipper, Ian Walker, jokingly emailed Puma’s navigator, Andrew Cape, to ask if they had considered the height of the new bridge when passing through!

Our passage around Fiji turned out to be quite tricky, as there were squalls everywhere. We’d be sailing in 25 knots, then the wind would suddenly drop to nothing and shift around 90 degrees.

We emerged in reasonable shape and within 50 miles of the leaders – not bad considering we were 300 miles behind a week ago.

The islands were really quite beautiful. I must go back there sometime when I have more time on my hands.

Since then there’s been a shuffle in the leading pack and Puma is now slightly in front – although it seems to change hourly.

There’s fewer than 40 miles between all five yachts – quite incredible when you consider we’ve been sailing for over 4,000 miles.

The sailing has been quite pleasant over the past week – flat water and hardly any waves.

After the excitement of navigating Fiji, the focus is now on New Zealand and the scoring gate.

It’ll also almost be the halfway mark in this leg.

We’re all incredibly disappointed that the race is not stopping in Auckland, as it has always been a great venue and would break up this extremely long leg perfectly.

Some of the guys have said if we get close enough they’ll swim for it, so Ian has decided to lock away our passports!

There are two scoring gates on this leg, so there are plenty of points up for grabs.

The first is a line of latitude running from New Zealand’s North Island to Chile. We’re currently sailing around 300 miles a day, so we should reach it later today or tomorrow.

We had been reaching with our Code Zero sail in around 15 knots of easterly wind, but the breeze has swung to the north, so we’re enjoying some downwind sailing (with the wind behind us).

This has meant a few sail changes, and we’re flying a spinnaker for the first time since the second leg. I was worried we’d have forgotten how to do it! It’s pretty slow-going though and it’s really hot on board.

The good thing is the boat is now fully dried out after our relentless soaking earlier in the leg.

I’m just tucking into my 56th bowl of freeze-dried food – only another 66 more meals to get through on this leg. It’s pretty hard to eat a bowl of carbonara in this heat.

Despite our eastern route around Fiji, we’re now positioned further west along with Telefonica Blue and we’ve been making up miles on the leaders in the last day or so.

We’re now within sight of Telefonica Blue and the fleet is compressing into an area of very little wind, so hopefully we should see more yachts soon.

Although we’re pushing hard to get to the scoring gate, it’s important that we try to get as much rest as possible.

We’ll be leaving the Pacific Ocean soon and heading down into the treacherous Southern Ocean, where we’ll need all our strength and wits about us.

We’ve sailed 4,000 miles but there’s still another 7,500 to go. This is really turning out to be an epic leg.

Spending more than 40 days on these boats is a challenge mentally as well as physically, and I find the best way to cope is to divide it into sections.

So, for now, I’m focused on getting to the scoring gate as quickly as we can and resisting the urge to make a break for New Zealand.