Baringo - Baringo - Triumph - Day 7 - Mon 3 Dec

Dear All readers of our not so daily blog,

this is Baringo - named after Lake Baringo in Africa - and a long way from our home port of Hong Kong.

Here on board the skipper and crew are having a wonderful wild downhill ride on the boat, nothing beats surfing 12 tons of plastic down the front of 5m waves at night with a following wind gusting to 40 knots true.

Whilst we note we are slowly dropping down the fleet at present in terms of position, we are congratulating ourseleves on our current rig - storm sail and small inner stay head sail, because alas we wore out the clue on our main head sail. The rig looks great, nothing like a bright orange storm sail to enliven life aboard. It is a triumph of our on board committee, because of course we have the ideal trans atlantic compliment: 3 medical doctors and 2 lawyers ! It's all fun aboard this vessel.

This morning we saw a double rainbow amidst squalls as dawn broke - its desolately beautiful out here and as we sit and think about what we will be doing this time next week, and indeed what we shall be doing in a fortnight and realise with much delirious hilarity that we'll be here aboard our faithful yacht we actually look forward to it and continue to enjoy the sailing...oh and the food and the jokes; they are always better second time around.

Lunch is being prepared as I write. Professor Andrew Peacock is on galley duty today. He is an expert in handling vasaline covered eggs (they are covered in vaseline to extend thier life), in a heavy sea way .... wow that one almost hit me !

The water maker is being run; our skipper and engineer 1st class Professor John Sanderson is putting all his skill as a cardiac physician to good use in coaxing the recalcitrant machine into life.

All well aboard - more anon.

S/Y Baringo
Atlantic Ocean.