Khamsin - Khamsin Day 18

Land Ahoy!! Blew our last bit of gas on bacon and egg butties to celebrate! What a fantastic morning. Beautiful sunrise. As Khamsin ploughs through the waves we disturb the flying fish and as they glide across the waves sparkling in the morning sunshine they’re being stalked by white beaked gulls swooping and diving. Gonna really miss all this… Well… takeaways from this trip. Worked well: water maker - many thanks David for pushing us to get one you were right we really appreciated the showers; pre-cooking and freezing the meals - a nuisance rotating the food to keep it frozen but we’ll worth the effort; autopilot on wind heading - tho used a lot of power and I would prefer a wind vane; Parasailor tho our relationship was brief it’s a fabulous sail. Lessons learned: practice going up the. read more...

Khamsin - Khamsin Day 17

The double overhand slip loop (used for attaching cord to the arms of your spectacles) is our final knot of the day. Hopefully anyway. Maybe the hangman’s knot would be more appropriate haha… Song of the day: Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd. We are all counting down every mile now and St Lucia really isn’t arriving soon enough - it’s a very long 120 miles. Nobody really wants another night at sea but it surely looks inevitable - in the hope that at some time we’ll see land lights and more sailing vessels we are going to have two people on each watch and so are drawing lots for the watch times. One more night sky seeing Venus Saturn and Jupiter almost in alignment. Mad… Dreaming now of a huge plate of salad and chocolate! Nearly nearly nearly done it - wahey!!!. read more...

Khamsin - Khamsin Day 16

When Piers spotted a mysterious well wrapped package floating past we naturally assumed it was drugs. Much to the disappointment of some on board we could think of absolutely no way at all to salvage it. Just as well as we are fast (well relatively) approaching St Lucia. We are starting to see frequent cargo ships now - BUT STILL NO DOLPHINS! The strangest thing yesterday evening tho, a cargo ship, Jose Progress, came within two miles of us - sounds a big distance but at sea feels surprisingly close - and then proceeded to ‘mill around’ changing direction here and there. We called up via VHF to see what was going on (nosy) and the guy was really grumpy and wouldn’t talk to us. As it was high in the water and didn’t look laden our imaginations began to run riot, no doubt fuelled by weeks. read more...

Khamsin - Khamsin Day 15

I’ve been mulling over awards the Arc Plus might want to consider: steepest learning curve, amount of things fixed, relentless optimism in the face of adversity, problem solving and ingenuity… I could go on but you’ll notice they’re all things we could win - who wants just to be first?! We really do seem to be making steady progress now and the Caribbean is well and truly in sight. As much as we’re looking forward to all the celebrations of arriving in port I think we’re all going to miss the peaceful solitude and the break from mobile phones and internet access. It feels like we’re in a surreal time warp, it’s been great, and I can hardly believe we’ll get caught up in Christmas festivities before we know where we are - all light years away from here. The biggest disappointment has been. read more...

Khamsin - Khamsin Day 14

Just had one of those nights where you feel you didn’t sleep at all. Plucky Khamsin has had to battle hard all through the night: whereas yesterday the sea was on our side and the 3-4 metre swell gave her a swooshing kick, last night it turned more hostile and she was pummelled continuously from dusk til dawn. Having said that, once settled into the routine of squally showers and gusty winds passing through regularly, I quite enjoyed my night watch tho I got pretty wet a few times when waves crashed over the back of the boat, and had to rescue a few flying fish who were surprised to find themselves unexpectedly in our cockpit. I did try to photo their dragonfly wings for Piers but pretty unsuccessfully as it turned out. Right. What happened yesterday. For me yesterday was mixed thanks to. read more...