Snow Wolf - blog

Monday, 22nd November, 20102100 UTC25’26 N17’23 W This is Snow Wolf with its first blog since departure Grand Canaries for ST Lucia! The build up to our departure was what I would describe as frantic. As all crew arrived at our new home for the next 3 weeks, we were each greeted by our skipper Matt. On board we are 8 in total. Our talented crew were all complete strangers to one another (albeit it now feels like we have known each other for ever) and consist of Tony, Tom, Eric, Tim, Bruce, Yens, and me, Phil. Our first task was to figure out how much food and drink we would need, and what we should bring. This all turned out to be very logical based on weight of food per person. For example, 125 gm. of meat per person per day was made up of chicken curry, sausages, beef stew,. read more...

Snow Wolf - Day 3 on board Snow Wolf

Tue, 2010-11-222040 UTC23’58.8N19’48.6W We are now settling down into our third night on the water. Jens and Erik are trying to get some sleep before their next watches. Phil, Tim and Tony are up on deck with Matt, and Ton and I are down below waiting for our next watch to start at 2100. Seven boats were visible at breakfast time this morning. The last sail disappeared over the horizon early this afternoon. We are now all alone on the wide wide sea, aside from the dolphins that is. The first cry of “dolphins” at 0815 saw everyone emerge from their bunks. (We received another visit soon after lunch.) I wonder how soon the wonder will wear off. Like most ARC boats, we have a fishing rod attached to the back of the boat. We’ve been trolling a lure and got one strike this. read more...

Snow Wolf - Blog 3 (24th/25th November)

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Snow Wolf - Blog 4

20’04N025’47WWell it’s day 5 in the big brother boot and spirits are running high.The typical ARC  weather plan of “sail south till the butter melts then turn right to catch the trade winds”  has caught many people out, as the weather has refused to run to plan. This strategy has left many people floundering down by the Cape Verde islands of the coast of Africa . Many are short of fuel and have decides to put into Cape Verde for a few days break. So much for the ARC!A few brave souls ourselves included have decided to venture west and this tactic has paid off handsomely as we are now making steady progress toward St Lucia and have less than 2000 miles to go. It’s a very dark night as the moon has not yet risen and we have not seen another boat on. read more...

Snow Wolf - Blog 27th November

Finally some good wind, we are sailing on a port tack and close haul. Really nice when you are at the helm, but not that nice when you are trying to sleep, especially if you are in the front or port side. I am in both, but it still so much better than motoring. It seems that skipper Matt’s strategy works, we are fourth in cruising division and first in class. Then ones in front of us are bigger, so we might beat them on corrected time. A big fish missed our dinner table, so we had to settle for prawn with avocado for starters and then chicken for main. This ocean is really big, I think we all will think about that every time we fly over it in an airplane. It is a bit hard to write this blog, because the keyboard keep sliding when I write, so this it for now. Everybody is. read more...