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Blue Ocean - Day 14: First contact



Alizes un peu mollassons toujours, une quinzaine de noeuds. Contact radio avec un catamaran Fountaine Pajot, a une dizaine de miles de nous – mais non visible. C`est le premier bateau proche depuis une huitaine de jours. Il ne fait pas partie de l`ARC, c`est un convoyage sur Antigua. On attend impatiemment un renforcement des alizes ,pour dimache en principe, pour fondre sur Rodney Bay !
Yv
 
The ocean is a big place. After the boats dispersed from Las Palmas we havent had close contact with any other craft since (except for a couple of isolated AIS readings). As we approach St. Lucia we expect courses to be converging and had expected Aurora (another ARC catamaran who would seem from the daily reports to be quite close) to show up on AIS earlier day. We also expect to get AIS, and maybe visual sightings, of other ARC yachts.
 
But no, first contact came from a non-ARC catamaran skippered by a chirpy Northerner; a delivery skipper en route to Antigua. He hailed us when we showed up on his AIS – not having a transmitter (only a receiver) he was invisible to us. As the only Brit aboard (our Polish skipper was having problems with the strong regional accent) I offered to take over radio comms and we had a pleasant banter; swapping weather forecasts etc.  These sorts of things take on much more significance when you have been so isolated.
 
Yellow Watch’s mac-n-cheese supper (cooked by Vin and I) went down well. It was accompanied by garlic roast potatoes and cinnamon-baked carrots. These were the last of the fresh carrots and were given the respect they deserve. Fresh produce  is running low – along with some other essentials (only 6 litres of milk and 5 onions left). On reflection, our provisionning was a little chaotic. However, we wont starve as we have three bilge lockers (referred to as Hell 1, 2 and 3) and two saloon lockers filled with an assortment of tins, jars and dried provisions.
 
Watched the Channel 4 documentary last night about Donald Crowhurst’s ill-fated attempt to win the solo round the world challenge (the Golden Globe was eventually won by Robin Knox-Johnston). I knew many of the details but hadnt previously seen the interviews with family and friends; as well as the footage of Crowhurst himself. Rather wieird watching this whilst at sea. I have every admiration for the folks who took on this epic challenge before the advent of modern communications, navigational instruments or weather forecasting in boats that would today be considered unsuited for the task.
 
Progress is slower that we would like at the moment – the winds have yet to reach full tradewind strength and, though we are heading in the right direction at least, our speed is below our target. We continue with the spinnaker up 24/7 (which gives the watches more work when they would rather be dozing in the cockpit). In fact, I can hear the spinnaker collapsing now and need to rush on deck to assist..............bye..........
 
Craig


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