I can't believe we've been at sea for 51 hrs already...and at this rate we might be lucky to make it to St Lucia for Easter let alone Christmas! We have had glorious weather and calm seas, but a distinct lack of decent wind which has meant we had to motor through a good proportion of last night- not a great start, however we are optimistic that as we continue to head south we will soon find a better breeze- in fact as I type I am being thrown off my chair as the wind picks up with a vengance. At long last.
Sunday was a great day; the excited, nervous tension in the marina was amazing and the start line even hairier than I think we had all been lead to believe. However, luckily, within minutes of crossing the line and getting into some clear water we had the cruising shute up and were away. Every hour more and more boats disappeared out of sight in all directions- only time will tell who's route turns out to be the most effective.
Night watch last night was amazing- Daddy said he could see dolphins, and Roger and I both thought he was seeing things (or making it up) until we saw at least 10 of them, lit up with phosphourescence. It was incredible. They were literally glowing in the dark. Hopefully tonight it will be whales or sharks- even more exciting!
As we are now heading south/south west, the boat is completely in the shade which is not helping my tanning much, but I'm not sure how impressed the men will be (especially father) if i suggest taking the sails down each afternoon so that I can work on it. What a shame!
We have decided that we must take advantage of the flat seas to have a barbeque, as when we start heading west it will inevitably get a lot choppier. This however means that we need to catch some fishies. I have had a line out since 7am and no luck yet. Having been told that we will definitely 'catch more fish than we will know what to do with' I am disappointed so far, but have set Nick the task of setting up line number two so watch this space...
I had better get back to fishing, but hope you're all well and we will be in touch again soon.
Annabel x