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Exody - Day 23- 2nd December - Welcome to Scotland !



But for the cabin temperature at close to 30 degrees celsius, the whole day could have been somewhere in northwestern Europe in our home waters - solid grey sky, rain, much cloud, little or no sun - the cockpit seats did not dry for the day! Along with one other boat Meise - 30/40 miles behind us we seem to have got lucky with a path between the squalls delivering a consistent patch of good easterly winds 15-20 knots for most of the day. Mate and crew got soaked on the early morning watches, including sterling foredeck work by Marian recovering our loose luffed yankee - a challenge to catch it and not dump it in the sea! We've been on genny alone ever since as it gives more flexibility to deal with windshifts.

The forecast had been for an 'easing' of the trade winds so we had been anticipating some motoring. So far we have only had the engine on for a total of 18 hours since the Mindelo Leg 2 start on 19th November and some of that just for charging - quite a contrast to our previous legs both down to Cape Verde and en route to the ARC+ start.

The first boats are already in and the number on the daily position list 'at sea' will diminish sharply today and tomorrow. We heard that one of the main ARC boats Leopard - a 33m ocean racer(departed Las Palmas 8 days ago) came through the fleet during the day - must be averaging 12 knots-ish!

The noon run from the slow previous day was 105 miles taking us to just under 400 miles - so a daytime Friday arrival is now almost certain. The mate and crew birthday celebrations for 4th will need to be conceived on board and of course repeated on land! Maybe we'll make it to the Gros Islet jump-up.

Fare from the galley today tuned to the weather- porridge for breakfast, hot soup and rolls for lunch, pasta for dinner.

Peter (Skipper)


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