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Lady Ann -



Just another day at the office..

Today, like yesterday, it has been business as usual on Lady Ann. Barrelling along at speeds between 8 and 9 knots, only just below our great circle rhumb line, we see to it that our mini community runs smoothly.

Davide starts with scissors and empty drinking water bottles: shredding them into our garbage bag. While doing so he mumbles unintellagable things to no one in particular in what must be his Sardinian language. Sometimes he gets this vague look in his eyes and starts smilimg, which most likely means he is daydreaming (again) about the female welcoming committee in St. Lucia.

Fritze has been busy ever since the start of his watch, designing aspreadsheet into which the daily ARC fleet position reports can be uploaded. His next big challenge will be to download that info into our MaxSea navigational software in order for us to actually see the positions of the surrounding yachts on the electronic chart. But we are not holding our breaths, since today has been designated as 'Total F**k Up Day' (by Fritze himself for reasons as yet only known to not even half of LadyAnn's crew; which reasons shall not be disclosed to the wider public aslong as Fritze behaves).

Thomas is totally absorbed in a book with the ominous title: 117 Days Adrift. Since he took an active part in Fritze's T.F.U.D. his interest in the subject is understandable to those in on the secret behind it. Every now and again he nervously glances over to both our Grag bags. He mutters something to himself, adds some pills and a medical operating stitching kit to one of the bags, and resumes reading, only to jump up moments later to check if the life raft has actually been tethered to the transom.

Ronald is standing behind the wheel, helming Lady Ann as solid as ever. The challenge for him this morning is to cross the magical 10 knot threshold, thus entering the prestigious circle of 'Lady Ann's preferred helmsmen' and qualifying him to wear the Lady Ann special merit blue/whitepolo shirt. His intensely focussed eyes alternate between the B&G readout for speed and heading (because these 10 knots should be attained at acertain heading). But every so often Ronald glances towards one of the stanchions amidships and we can see him thinking: 'how the h... did this stanchion end up all twisted and bent inwards last night??'

Down below, Ingo is absorbed in Nigel Calders Boat Owners Manual. By recent experience we know that this gentle and modest electrical engineer needs but the exciting sound of our angling line whizzing out, to turn into a most deadly killing machine. He might leave the reeling in of the catch of the day to Frank, and the gaffing of the fish to Fritze, but give him a pair of non slip gloves and he will take the fish's tail into anbionic grip and he will never, ever let go of the poor thing untill it has been expertly gutted and chopped up into nice fillets by Fritze.

Maria lounges in the cockpit and writes up her diary. Meanwhile she monitors the B&G speed/heading read outs as well and whenever she fears Ronald might stray too far from the preferred heading, she leads him back with a sharp remark. She seems to regret these remarks the moment she has made them, realising she is coaching a man well over twice her age. Only her diary knows if sharing a cabin with Ronald has bonded them into a relation that allows for such coaching remarks.

Frank, immensely energetic as ever, makes himself useful: setting the fishing gear up every morning and changing the lures every now and again, reassuring us that today we will have fresh tuna sushi at happy hour. Later on he produces a sextant and takes the sun's altitude well afternoon. He fiddles around with an app on his iPhone, pounces in the result of his sextant measurements, and after about an hour and a half as if by magic produces a fix that was only about 6 miles off. Rightfully proud of himself he then sets off with some laundry to the aft deck. He puts his laundry in a net and trawls it behind Lady Ann. Upon retrieving it an hour later he declares the result fit, once properly sundried, for near future use.

Edo in the mean time is typing away on the computer keyboard. Whenever someone asks him what it is he is typing he evades the subject by asking what we should have for lunch today or if someone would like a piece of cake with coffee. The idea is that his fellow crew members should only read his ARC log entry of today well after arrival in St. Lucia...


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