White Satin - Whisky galore

We continue directly towards St Lucia, in the middle of the trade wind belt. Unfortunately the trade winds seem unaware of that and are not at home. So the last 24 hours has had a fair bit of drifting along at 2 or 3 knots, though this morning it has picked up a bit and we have been managing about 5 knots. The forecast is promising further improvement and hopefully later we will be zooming along at the 7 knots that we would expect here, and actually arrive in St Lucia in time for Xmas !

Yesterday was St Andrew's day, and Vicki drawing on her very slight Scottish ancestry had planned an appropriate evening meal of haggis (who knew that you could get haggis in tins ?), the ingredients on the tin said it was made from lamb's lobes - I don't know what those are, but I suspect it is a euphemism for things we would rather not know, and luckily as we don't have a dictionary on board we enjoyed it very much. To complete the Scottish theme we also had a special treat of a dram of whisky each from a bottle that Vicki had carefully managed to keep hidden from us, and so had survived thus far without being illicitly broached in in the wee small hours by crew members when on watch. A real treat after 11 alcohol free days for all of us.

We had a bit of excitement just after midnight last night when the Blanchards came on watch as there was the loud sound of breathing close to the boat - once we had established it wasn't Fiona snoring we realised that we must be passing very close to a whale.

Our entertainments officer (Vicki) continued to provide great value yesterday. As we were drifting along in the sun yesterday she went to the foredeck with her iPod and headphones on, and sang very loudly along with the songs with all the tunefulness you expect of someone wearing headphones.

She assumed (incorrectly) that we wouldn't be able to hear back in the cockpit. It also probably explains why we didn't see any whales in daylight.

We expect to reach the half-way point sometime overnight Fri/Sat, and I have heard rumours that we have something on board to celebrate. And if the trade winds finally decide to do what they are paid for, it should be significantly quicker than the first half.