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Adina - Day 15 Harold on the Blog



It's Harold the much loved mallard duck here doing a guest blog for Adina! I featured in a blog just the other day - for those of you who've forgotten, I belong to Neil's wife Hallie. I'm crossing the Atlantic with Neil while Hallie looks after baby Amelie who will be meeting us in St.Lucia.

I thought I'd give you a walk through of crew onboard Adina.

Skippy Tom is like the Daddy. He's always reminding people of the proper order to do things in so as not to risk the crew blowing the boat up! He's often sat studying the weather and working out the best way for us to go, reminding all to trim and steer. He loves to helm, especially when his baby, the parasailor, is up. Dab hand on the SSB radio talking to other boats and getting our emails in and out for us.

Then there's Susie - by gum she just knows everything. We'd be lost without her. Need a needle or a drive belt, she knows where they are. Makes us food, mends boat parts too! Never sits still. I think I'm going to get her to build me a new duck house. And all done with a smile.

Gareth sits there watching episode 24 of Breaking Bad just waiting to be called to fix something. If it's got to be fixed, he's there like a shot, his eyes light up and if it's broke, he'll fix it! The man makes Blue Peter look tame, never defeated. He's in charge of our towable generator but the crew aren't telling he got the wires the wrong way round yesterday. As I write he has a little fix-it challenge on his hands but that's for tomorrow's blog.

Lindsay is our other lady - full of bubbles and positive joy. She likes helming, focusing intently on the compass numbers, not to be distracted. That's until dolphins are sighted and every boat on the Atlantic knows about it! She looks after the boys and is just as busy in the galley as she is on the helm keeping everyone full and happy.

And then there's my Neil - he just loves the bow, up there in a shot when needed, no matter what, rain, shine or wet waves, hoisting and dropping the parasailor or rigging the preventer. Trims the boat to keep us going, and knocks up some mean dishes in the galley too. Hallie and Amelia would be damn proud. Then at night we snuggle up together and I make sure he gets a good night's sleep ready for action the next day.

As for yesterday, there was no wind, and we had to use our engine. The crazy crew stopped the boat and decided to go for a swim in the Atlantic. Have they not seen Jaws? No way was a plumb little Mallard Duck going into that big blue pond. They're getting pretty desperate for fish - another reel out, another lure lost. Ducks like fish, I wish they would hurry up.

So it's a long way to St.Lucia, but with this crew and with me as there lucky mascot, we're going to make it just fine!

This is Harold the much loved Mallard duck for Adina.



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