Tuesday 3rd December: Glorious morning again with spectacular sunrise. Position 16 47'N 26 20'W. 12kts NE breeze doing 5/6 knts toward St Lucia. Still a bit light but better than sitting in Mindelo. 1000 hrs passed under 2,000nm to go, still a long way but lovely out here.
An ode to the elements:
We are all in one team
Just living the dream
Of sailing St Lucia way,
The seas they were slight
and the winds they were light,
so baked beans were the order of the day!
Actually managed to hear other boats on SSB at 1300 net call tody which was good but only really those close to us due to heavy interference. A real shame as would like to participate more fully.
We put the spinnaker up around 1330 but it came down pretty much immediately. Hanked the halyard to the wrong ring on the snuffer sock so when the kite filled it snapped away and ended up floating! At least we still could retrieve the halyard still attached to the sock so was a delay, no more. Quite interesting though seeing the spinnaker floating by!
I cooked a roast dinner today, delayed from Sunday. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, well all except the yorkshires anyway as saving the flour for other delights. Roast potatoes and carrots, peas plus a special gravy made up of anything I could find in the cupboard in the absence of Bisto. Came out alright even if I say so myself.
A surreal evening on first watch with clear skies, light airs, spinnaker still up and Pink Floyd, Dark side of the moon, playing on outside speakers. Lovely! Actually sitting out in shorts and a fleece for the first time as up to now have been wearing wet weather gear at night.
Charlie - Webster