15:19N 57:27W Full sail, and an amazing 8ish knots in 5 knots of headwind as we rip past an arc boat on the horizon every hour or so. Our new metallic spinnakers really are the business. Still on target for daylight
arrival in rodders tomorrow pm. DTF 215 at 1300GMT = 0900 local/carib.
The other ARC transat boats have to make do with forecasters of the type that foolishly try to make the noun "ridge" into a verb, or more specifically, a gerund. So for arcies, instead of there being a "broad ridge" of pressure, the ghastly ARC text forecasts describe "broad ridging"! Ugh! Presumably arc staff also have "appleing" in the grocery section of Waitrose, and a good deal of "petrolling" in their local petrol station?
Jeez! Oh, of course, I know what it means, really. But then I can just about understand two-year old children and even some semi-literate morons too. But they're not in the business of producing and broadcasting
text-based scientific information, are they? No. And if If one can't even write English to a reasonable standard, it casts severe doubt on one's ability to do something rather more complicated - like forecast the weather accurately. So, I wonder - could we all pay slightly higher ARC entry fees to help contribute towards some remedial English teaching in between rallies? Oh, and whilst we're about it, I also ought to mention that car-crash of an ARC seminar back in Las Palmas "Dealing with Stress at Sea", at which the lecturer forgot all her notes to go with the Powerpoint slides - not actually a joke as it turned out. Some assistance desperately needed there as well.
Thankfully, by the Grace of Our BxWx, Mojomo is spared such organisational and lingusitic horrors, and we can bask in the glory of His Word. Other boaties in their multitudes have asked if they too can have an audience with BxWx, or access His website? But like all true deities, BxWx has no internet presence nor money-grubbing commercial operation, and so, very unfortunately, He is far beyond the reach of your laptop or credit card.
And we can all be thankful that, unlike some other deities we could mention, BxWx has no intention of pretending to have expertise as a carpenter - and then eternally blaming the rest of mankind for a DIY-pergola-making accident which might occur should He decide to nail together two large pieces of wood
from Jewsons.
Latest below
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This is the last bxwxfx for your trip. NASA are giving me a hard time to borrow our astonishing computing power for a few days to find more planets containing water in the 'Goldilocks zone' of other solar systems. I wish they'd asked BX before. We spotted a blob of the stuff years ago on quite a few but felt the World wasn't ready to imagine 'we are not alone'.
Mojomo has passed its own blob now but there may be quite a few squalls Tues and Wed. There will be very little wind, maybe just S4kts max and zero around your dinner time this evening. Seas around ENE 1.5m 8". Wed will see a slow return to ENE winds, starting about your midnight, just aboput 7kts, then increasing about half a kt an hour 'til daylight when it should be ENE 10kts. So enough to fill the sails as you round Pigeon for a close hauled piccie from the arrival RIB. Please don't let the side down. I'd like to see perfectly pressed shirts, clean shaven crew with dazzling white teeth and at least one healthy basil plant. Try not to crunch into the concrete pontoon. Well done for making the EAP, I had my doubts but Lo, the gravitational pull of an EAP is awsome indeed. 3 days is a pretty impressive game of catch up!
bx, returning to fireside ocean sailing mode..
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