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Murphy - Close Encounters – Log Day 16



Passage notes

On the chart-plotter Murphy is now permanently connected to St Lucia by a red line and the wind is kind enough to allow us to sail directly along that line towards our destination. Such is their force that we are knocking out the hundreds (of miles) like Alastair Cook on a particularly good day at Lords. Earlier in the passage it had seemed more like a Geoff Boycott innings. This morning at 08:00 we joined the 300 Club, with that number of miles to go, and we have immediately lodged an application to join the 200 Club. At our current speed we anticipate a positive response by no later than 21:00 this evening.

Something went badly awry with the weather this morning – a major squall hit the dawn watch (Andrew and Lucinda), giving them a light but thorough soaking – it surely must have been meant for the incoming morning watch (Jake and Jeff) – one can only assume that our clocks are out of synch with the current time zone.

Mysteries of the Deep – the Big Red Blob and the Tilley Hat

Last night the radar picked up a biggish target on our port side, which showed up on the chart-plotter as a big red blob. It wasn't one of those stray reflections from waves or weather, because it was well-defined, persistent and moving quite fast only a couple of miles away. Logically it can only have been a commercial vessel, but no lights were seen and there was no AIS identification, so the imagination wonders – some sort of secret stealth vessel? a submarine? something criminal? - Lucinda prefers to think it was a whale.

The second mystery, in Lucinda's eyes, is why the captain wears his Tilley Hat at night, since it is patently designed to shield its wearer from the sun. To Andrew there is no mystery - “It's because it's my sailing hat” he says – simples.

Reaching our destination not good news for all

It has become clear that we must reluctantly say goodbye to another old friend as soon as we arrive in St Lucia, if not before. A message has been received from the captain's wife saying how much she is looking forward to seeing him there CLEAN SHAVEN! Andrew may be slow, but he can take a hint, so the whiskers are going to have to go – to be honest they never quite amounted to as much as he had hoped and they are very fair (do you mean white? Ed.).

Happy hour special edition

Yesterday evening, with only three more happy hours before our expected arrival in Rodney Bay, we were able to reassess our supplies and double the gin ration. We also succeeded in not forgetting to open, serve and consume a bottle of wine. The result was a very happy crew. After a wonderful dinner of pan-fried salmon fillets with lime and coriander rice and a beautiful sauce of onions, garlic and cream, we even managed to find a couple of Monte Cristos just to finish things off in style. It was, however, quite tricky to light them in the prevailing breeze, leading to all sorts of contortions underneath the cockpit table.

ARC company

We have seen neither hide nor hair of another ARC boat since we parted company with Coral IV last Friday, so we were quite excited last night when we saw an AIS triangle pop up on the chart-plotter – a vessel, 15 miles or so to our North East, at that stage too far off for the name and details to come up, but Class B and therefore more likely to be a yacht than a cargo ship – plus its course made it look as though it too was heading for St Lucia. Eventually the name appeared and we were pleased to see that it was our old friend Coral IV once again – quite a coincidence. We are obviously now on a convergent course, but I have a feeling that Otto is just holding back a little – could this be anything to do with the fact that before we left we had a bet with a twist – whichever of us gets to St Lucia first has to buy dinner for the other. Otto has a crew of 6 and Norwegians can be very cunning.

 

Andrew, Lucinda, Jake and Jeff

Noon, Wednesday 12th December, 2012




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