Last night we had another series of squalls with rain (not in the brochure!!!) and nobody got a lot of sleep. We have to catch up on sleep over the day today otherwise we will be hallucinating soon. The wind was in the late 30 knots and made us shorten sail regularly, in this case furl in the headsail. Seas huge as before. Only the children sleep through it all. But this morning the sun is out and we gybed the headsail so are now beam reaching toward St Lucia, 1700 miles to go. Wind around 25 knots, we have a Dutch boat next to us, always nice to see other ARC participants. Highlight of the day is the 1300 SSB call for our group where we hear what conditions the other boats have had, what broke and what sort of fish they caught. The kids chat at night with their friends with Emily of Rafiki being the very capable net controller.
The boat movements are often violent down below and the fatalities so far are a thermos can, two mugs, two bowls of stew and a kilo of flour on the carpet. Learning by doing. We have eaten well as my seasickness has gone so I can cook properly. Eating the food is another issue, I can understand now that dog bowls can have their place on an ocean going boat. We eat in the cockpit on our laps. I also understand now when racing boats talk about their difficulties in slowing the boat town. At night our freight train goes way too fast for my liking, I am not good in the dark and scooting along at 10 knots in monstrous seas feels intimidating. For Derek it can't be fast enough I think. The boys have a lovely banter going and the atmosphere on the boat is super.