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Free Spirit - 5th December



Hi from Andy :)
 
We've been at sea for how long now? Oh yes, 12 days. Well the sea views are nice but where is the wind? Down here at 16 deg north there isn't any! Here we are genoa repaired, kite up, on the great circle to St Lucia and we are wallowing around doing 3.5kts. The Atlantic rollers look good I must say but most are beam on and cruelly taking our whatever wind is in our parasailor. Oh well, it's nice and hot at least!
 
Peter and I have been doing our astro navigation. We have dutifully got our sextants out at local noon every day. The others seem confused as local noon is anything but noon in GMT terms. Still I've always been happy to live in GMT onboard, sadly, as Tom Cunliffe once said, this wonderful idea is usually spoiled by crew who insist on sleeping at night and eating meals at 'normal' times...hmmph. Anyway, the results of our astro nav have varied from the first few days where we were pleased to confirm our position was indeed on planet Earth, to a few days later where we were pleased to note that we were in the northern hemisphere. Now though, we are fixing our position within 3NM! Being ever so pleased with ourselves, we look at the others for applause only to be greeted by the blank faces of crew who don't understand why we don't just switch the gps on... grrr!
 
I'm optimistically still hoping for a 13th December arrival in St Lucia but we'll need some wind to kick in soon. My lovely Jo emailed to say that our arrival date as per ARC control was being shown as the 15th. (They follow us on a yellowbrick tracker). Oh no! I've still got a Christmas dinner to get to on the 18th... Ever seen Jo when she's upset? ... I have .... eek!!
 
Cheers Andy


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