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Starblazer - 12/01/14 – The adventure begins!



Perhaps a better title should be ‘The adventure continues’ because the previous 6 months have all been an adventure, however from noon yesterday we are sailing in unknown waters. We had a fantastic start, crossing the line with only about 7 or 8 boats ahead of us. The first part of the course was a brisk reach down to a turning mark off Castries, about 2 miles away. I think we surprised Rally Control on the police launch when we turned in about 9th or 10th position, after all we are rated as the slowest boat on this leg! To be honest, we surprised ourselves being ready on the start line on time, let alone getting it right.

The past week has been very busy, a mixture of work and play, but busy. Our safety inspection on Monday threw up a problem with the EPIRB, an essential bit of safety kit. The battery expiry date was mid December, something which wasn’t picked up in Las Palmas, and something which requires the unit being sent to a service agent. It isn’t going to happen before New Zealand!

Island Water World managed to get one from their St Maarten store but we had to jump through the Customs hoops and it took several days and cost about $1,000 US. The bits we needed for the mainsail batten cars, part of the system to make it easier to pull the sail up, and which we had ordered before the new year, finally arrived on Friday, too late to be installed before we left. John picked up the final package from customs, the new lift pump for the watermaker, at about 5.30 on Friday afternoon.

On Thursday we had booked a ‘lunchtime lift out’, unfortunately the yard was running an hour and a half late so my 2 hour window to go food shopping slammed shut. Never mind, we could do it on Friday afternoon. The yard relaunched us after high pressure hosing the hull and us replacing an anode and greasing the prop again. We went to refuel and found we would save 9 EC cents a litre (=2p) if we had already checked out from Customs and Immigration, so that became another job for Friday. My Friday afternoon shopping ‘window’ was taken up with refuelling! We took on 460 litres so it was worth waiting. I finally did the food shopping early on Saturday morning. Better late than never.

We needed to go sailing to have a rest and give the credit cards a break but not before saying goodbye to the friends we have made on ARC Portugal and the ARC. Thanks guys for your friendship and support, you know who you are and we’ll always remember you.

12 hours into the passage, we’ve covered 82 miles which is a good average speed for us. We have slipped straight back into passage making mode with 3hour night watches and good food. Dinner Saturday evening was pork chops with a honey, mint and roasted garlic glaze served with new potatoes, carrots and broccoli.

Joyce


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