Resolute of Thames - Head Start

I could not immediately recall why November 24th had a special significance in my inner diary....then of course I realised. Today is the day we would have been setting off from Las Palmas to cross the Atlantic with the Atlantic Rally had we decided not to take the opportunity to do the trip with a smaller group of 50 boats via the Cape Verde Islands with ARC+. So today we can imagine the scene in Las Palmas as 200 boats set off to sail directly to St. Lucia. I can't help but feel smug as they join us in this magnificent ocean; smug that we have managed to squeeze in our stop to the another amazing archipelago and smug too that we are already 5 days into our voyage. Had you asked me yesterday I would have said that in all likelihood the quickest of the ARCees leaving today would possibly pass us as we were lolloping along unhurriedly in light winds but today we are bombing along again and are very nearly at the quarter-way-there point of 540 miles...a good head start.