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White Satin - Life is a rollercoaster



1404 miles sailed 1600 miles to go

David commented yesterday that he felt that we had finally 'begun' and
indeed we have. Last night's card school was interrupted for a sail change
from the parasailor to the white sails as the wind picked up - just in time.
45 miles have been covered in the last 6 hours, we are positively flying
along; although we do not expect to keep up this pace continuously we are
starting to smell the rum punch. It is like being on Thunder
Mountain/Nemesis though as you surf down the waves - you feel like closing
your eyes and holding your hands in the air.

Today's photo shows David holding a (deceased) flying fish, which probably
landed on the deck overnight. Then in true Addey style, and upholding the
Bushcraft philosophy that no living thing should ever give up its life
needlessly, he tried to enjoy a mid afternoon snack (although he did refrain
from consuming the eyeball), although by the time four of us had had a taste
(Paul declined) there wasn't too much left for him.

The other thing about today's photo you will notice, is that contrary to
speculation after yesterday's photo, in which Jon was apparently
wearing nothing other than an apron, David is indeed fully clothed. Our
children will no doubt be relieved to know that despite the heat, we have
not turned 'au natural'. We are good friends, but not that good!

The days pass surprisingly quickly. We do chores in the morning (cleaning
and sorting out the food) and the log is written in time to send it off by
mid afternoon, so we hope it is being posted on the website by the evening.
(We can't see the website so we don't know if anyone has left us comments on
there but we will enjoy reading them when we arrive). At lunchtime we
receive the fleet position from the ARC organisers, Jon is Excelling himself
(one of David's not too cringeworthy jokes), transporting this information
into a spreadsheet from which he can produce a scatter graph to show where
all the other boats are in relation to ourselves. We have also started
the fourth cycle of showers, which is a pretty good luxury. We have very
creative cooks on board and do not yet feel in any way deprived food wise.
Waldorf salad, crepes with lemon/golden syrup, muesli flapjacks to name but
a few culinary extravaganzas. Jon, Paul and Helen do a 'Telegraph Toughie'
every day. Skipper spends most of his time monitoring the wind, doing minor
chafing repairs, tweaking sails - he never has been one to sit still for
very long. After lunch there is usually a quiet hour, then over afternoon
tea we do a quiz from the RYA Yachtmaster quiz book or a 'Polyword' (you are
given 9 letters including one compulsory letter and have to find as many
words of four letters or more as you can) not stopping of course until we
have exceeded the 'excellent' target. We sometimes play a game, so far we
have managed Taboo, Family Fortunes, How Well Do You Know Your Partner, as
well as the card school. Over supper we solve a 'Teatime Teaser' but whilst
Vicki thought these would be interesting conundrums, the others are far too
clever and usually work out the solution pretty quickly.

We have now passed the magic halfway mark, where the distance to go is less
than the distance covered on the trip so far, although the total of these
two is still increasing (but only by a small amount now) daily. Our
friends, Philip and Helen Scourfield (who David crewed for on the ARC+ last
year and who have been out here/in America ever since) are currently in St
Lucia and return to the UK for
Christmas on the 13th; we are really hoping to see them before they
leave - we are doing our very best but it means covering a minimum of 150
miles per day and not stumbling across any more wind holes, if we are to
make it.

Exhilarating times
Vicki


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