It’s 4am in the morning, the moon has just risen and is shining across the sea. It’s blowing 20kts and we continue to sail downwind at 7.4kts with a poled out stay sail rather than the Genoa to reduce the risk of chafe. We now have less than 600 miles to go - thats less than a Fastnet Race! We achieved our target of over 150 miles in a day yesterday (154 miles) and have now adjusted the target to 160 miles.
All the crew have received emails from home - they are much appreciated and well received - thank you.
Since our last blog we have experienced heavy rain squalls, thunder and lightening. There is much debate about whether to count Elephants, Mississippis or 1000s after a lightening flash to calculate the distance to the storm.
Andrew has highlighted that ‘the faster we sail the less we will roll’ and Carole has decided from the state of beards around her that she is now sailing with Father Christmas, a Peckham’s favourite Grandad and an Aging Rockstar - we’ll leave you to work out who’s who!
Bad news is that our red and white wine substitutes (Ribenna and orange squash) have been exhausted - we have drunk the cellar dry. Good news is that an additional Ribenna pot has been located - it should keep us going for a day or two.
Top tip for sailing downwind in 20kts of breeze - close the aft hatches. Salt water takes a long time to dry out of beds and in the meantime you’ll be living in a sauna/sweatbox.
Pete’s sardine spaghetti is the crews latest favourite dish from the roller coaster galley. As stocks of fresh vegetables begin to dwindle we are moving onto our tinned varieties, but the cabbage keeps going, and supplies of couscous, rice and pasta remain steady. Our supply of eggs has been ‘eggausted’ and Andrew remains one egg behind the rest of the crew and will have to wait until we land before he can catch up - that won’t take long. His taste in music can not be corrected however!
Water supplies will allow two more crew shower days, providing we run the water maker for a few hours tomorrow.
The investigations into the disappearing Digestives and wine gums have now had to be extended to include jelly bears - these were last seen on Tuesday by the chart plotter. A weigh in on landing has been suggested to discover who has put on weight during our voyage.
We are all fine and looking forward to our arrival in St Lucia - we are sure she is ready to say hello.