Thursday, 8 Dec 2011
Well last night was a bit difficult on board – the night before Bruce ran into a bit of trouble – we think it might have been brief high winds from perhaps a squall – well all of a sudden the wind jumps from about 12 knots to 45. Bruce briefly loses control and does two 360 degree turns. In a flash Tom, Ben and Guy are on deck to help. We quickly regain control, but this also allows for an opportunity to talk about emergency procedures. It’s pitch black – what if one of us had gone over the side – we all came up with our life vests and safety harnesses on – first and most important – “STOP the BOAT” – 2) push the man overboard alarm (this marks our exact location with the GPS), 3)throw the safety cushions toward the person who went over, 4)turn on the spot light, 5)if we don’t see him retrace our steps using the GPS. Next we talked about storms – in case of lightning both Tom and Bruce have rolls to follow in order to protect the sensitive electronic gear, etc., etc. A small scare allowed us to re-think and review our safety procedures. As you can appreciate, Tom’s an excellent skipper.
Well as a result of the previous night (they say it was because it was awfully hot) no one slept very well and they all at various times visited Bruce while on watch making sure that he wasn’t going to try another surfing the swells backwards. Ben was pretty well wired after 4 cups of coffee. Fortunately it turned out to be very quiet – but we did do a better job monitoring the radar.
Dinner yesterday was a treat – we broke out some chili con carne that Gretchen had make earlier and was frozen in the freezer. We had some rice and vegetables with it. It was wonderful. At the cocktail hour Tarryn had made some wonderful banana nut bread muffins that we had and also saved some for breakfast the next morning. Because everyone was tired we passed on the nightly movie.
Today is beautiful – because of the light winds the chute (spinnaker) is up. This should give us an extra burst of speed. At this point we are about 500 miles from St Lucia and closing in.
Ciao