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Northern Child - ARC DAY 11: written by Adolfo



What a day !!! Everything goes soooooooooooo slow that if it continues for another 24 hours I might have to get into the sea and swim with sharks for excitement ;-) 

If I had my iTunes and iPod with me I would have to build a playlist for today including the following songs:

- "Travelling without moving" by Jamiroquai

- "Quiet Nights of Quiet Starts" by Stan Getz

- "Shooting Stars" by Maverick Sabre

- "Move me no Mountain" by  Soul II Soul

- "When the sun(wind) goes down" by Fleetwood Mac

- "Staring at the Sun" by  U2

- "Dont Stop the Party" by The Black Eyed Peas

- "Where did we go wrong?" by  Incognito

 

Yes. All of that. We are simply stucked in a no/little wind zone and we make barely any progress with this. Northern Child is a heavy solid boat that has given us great stability in the rough conditions (and I thank her for that) but the fine old lady is a bit too heavy for this calmed conditions so we are living a surreal 36 hours of floating on the ocean; it is hot, sun burns are starting to appear on the crews backs (or bald patches), no waves, no movement and we find ourselves arguing on how to best trim the sails or steer the rudder to get movement of 2 knots of wind.

You can imagine how "intersting" our 10 hours on watch were last night....slooooooooooooooooooow is an understatement.

There is of course some positive in this calm: both Howard and Deborah who are only starting to learn to steer are getting great practice and is nice to see them progressing and having fun In this calme you can always brew coffee without getting burned and today I even found the courage to prepare a mediterranean toasts with olive oil, squashed tomato, garlic, onions and parsley which served on toast bread felt like a treat after the last 10 days...  a touch of home for me ;-)

I must confess that at this point I am ready to switch on the engine and push us out of this zone and then have the penalty time added at the end (it is possible under ARC rules) but team is more purist and patient and would rather wait and see if we get out. If we do, I will be glad they did not listen to me. If we are still here in 36 hours it will feel frustrating.

It is frustrating to see us drop in the leader board. In particular since we had a great first week in a leading position for much of it but rightly decided to come south to avoid a calm area that was developing and somehow we landed in it and have since given away much of our position (not 100% clear since the tracker we have on board is malfunctioning and is not always showing us or in the right position).With over 900 miles to go surely we are bound to find some "power" again and cruise fast to St. Lucia and past other boats.

I realise that only a few days ago I was reflecting on how hard was to always keep moving at 10+ knots in 25-30 knots but after 36 hours of this, I must admit that I would have another Force 8 and sail into Rodney Bay in St. Lucia to get that HUGE cocktail that I keep dreaming about !

I was doing my usual nightly prospection of stars and constellations (BTW we are getting the best observations of Orion, Cassiopeia, Perseus and the solar system planets that I have seen in years - probably since 2006 when sailing on the Aegean Sea in summer time) when I started to think what material things I was missing the most on this trip. While you miss things here and there, after 10 days on board you learn to live with what you have on board and it all appears enough (there is a learning there). You have the few cloths you have on board, stored in the little space you get on the boat and that's it. I am certainly glad (as it is obvious the rest of the crew is) that we have consumer electronics to play with (from Christian's computer and Iridium phone, to iPads, iPods, video cameras and the odd kindle) BUT yes there are some material things I miss and I plan to do upon arrival in St. Lucia:

- an ice maker and all the paraphernalia to prepare large Gin & Tonics

- a Nesspresso machine with lots of capsules

- a good aerobic workout

- a bed. no frills , just a bed

- a good quiet couple of hours in front of my iPad on broadband to catchup on things and with friends

- ... and a proper toilet

When we get closer to St Lucia I plan to run a little survey with the team to see what they miss and see what the variance is and what the odd things are... for example someone can say that they missed their favourite TV program or pijamas ;-)

Anyway, lets stop all this rumbling now and switch over to the weather server to see if we are likely to get any wind before we all get mad at the Dulldrums.

As I type this, I am listening to Maverick Sabre singing "A change is gonna come"... I hope he is right

More tomorrow.

Adolfo @ Northern Child





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