can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Windleblo - Day Twelve



Close your eyes and imagine.

You're out in your sailboat on an endless sea. The wind is at your back. A warm, gentle breeze wraps around you as you gaze into the middle distance as if in a trance. Nothing breaks the rhythm of the boat's rocking with the ocean swell, first to port, then to starboard, again to port, again to starboard, over and over and over. The water gurgles past the hull as the miles drift beneath the keel and behind you.

Now open your eyes.

The dream described above is an apt description of Day Twelve. We are approaching mid-passage and have fully adjusted to life at sea. We wake up, we check the rig, we eat, we take our watch, we trim the sails, we eat again, we doze, we read, we doze again, we do isometric exercises, we check the rig again, we eat, we take our watch, we sleep. Nothing, it seems, disturbs this cycle. We imagine sailing endlessly past St. Lucia, around and around and around the world.

But of course such imaginings are simply our minds wandering with the motion of the ocean. Today's ARC Fleet News email announces that Caro is the first ARC 2013 boat to arrive at Rodney Bay, having broken the ARC record held since 2006 by eight hours and seven minutes. We plot the positions of the boats around us, taken during today's ARC SSB radio net, and find that we are part of a convoy of boats that also chose the "south 'til the butter melts" route. Despite the emptiness, we know other boats are just over the horizon.

Out here, you can feel pretty lonely. And at mid-passage, you are as far from land as you can be. So it's comforting to realize we are not alone.

We sail on.



Previous | Next