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Northern Child - Northern Child - Day 9



We are now well into the trade winds with  good 20-kt easterlies, the occasional squall, and a very gentle swell. This allowed us to take bets on when we will arrive in St. Lucia.  Our Dear Leader  Chris, presumably in the know, counts on having his first island rum on Tuesday, Dec. 09.   Dr. Ian, our allegedly erudite but more pessimistic crew member, puts it at a more cautious Friday the 12th.  In any case, with the mid-point here, the countdown has started. 
 
Today also we successfully negotiated a first  time change of two hours. As a result of this  we have reverted to a sunset about six pm and sunrise about seven am again as we had in Las Palmas. We will have one more time change of course shortly before arrival. 
 
And we should get there soon because the extraordinary cooking in constrained circumstances that has so enlightened our voyage so far means that we are about to finish the fresh foods and revert back to canned vegetables, pizzas and the Italian delicacy of spaghetti, aglio, olio, e pepperoncini for the rest of the trip.  Unless we catch more fish, of course, but they are playing hard to get and today several fish bit our shiny lures only to chew through the line and escape before we could serve them some rum. We will keep trying!  
 
The interaction among the the crew continues to develop in interesting directions reflecting our diverse backgrounds and personalities, with the A Team still discussing deep philosophical concepts such as "nothingness" and Team A trying to come up with the perfect murder scenario (not involving a boat with eleven passengers).     
 
We were followed for several hours by a lost bird from the Cape Verde which attempted unsuccessfully to make off with our lure whilst Xav found himself attacked by a few flying fish while studying at the chart table down-under.
 
Overall we all continue to be deeply struck by the physical environment of endless vistas of sea and sun and sky which we are settling into as we progress. We look forward to further interesting vistas of all sorts over the next and second week. 
 
Current position  1800  17'00.31N  36'23.00W


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