Sunday 3rd Dec. It has been 2 weeks since we started the ARC and 1 week since our last blog. This week has seen team KS get into a routine of watches and meals. Meal and coffee breaks are important events that break up the day. We had our last fresh meat yesterday and i cannot praise enough the excellent meat that the recommended butcher in Las Palmas delivered to us vacuum packed and frozen. So from today we move to ham, cheese, tinned meats accompanied with tortilla de papas,rice, pasta etc. The good news is that we still have fresh onions and apple to stave off scurvy.
We have moved 23 degrees west over the last week we have noticed the sun setting later and rising later so to fit in with this change we have moved our eating and watch times by 1 hour. This gradual shift will help us accustom our body clocks for St Lucia time as they are 4 hours behind GMT.
The weather this week has been a good steady breeze ranging from 8-20knts and from the expected direction NE, E & ESE. This has meant downwind sailing & although this is not a problem for KS, Vera (Hydrovane) did struggle at times with the wind behind 180 degrees accompanied by a large Atlantic swell. We have used main and geneoa from fully out to 3 reefs in main and 2 in the Jib. But we always reef down at night to ensure comfortable safe overnight passages.
Today we passed the imaginary center of the Atlantic crossing 38 degrees west and opened the gift from friends Bill and Sandy Tremlett. Bill has previously crossed the Atlantic with Chris & Mavis Hornsey & Ian Corney. The gift was a CD of Hancock's half hour episodes to help fill the hours and hours of downwind sailing, thank you. We have already listened to one episode, a welcome change in routine. We still check in to the ARC SSB at 12 (GMT)but can hear fewer boats due to spreading out of the fleet. We are looking forward to reconnecting with these yachts as we all converge on the Caribbean in the next week to 10 days.
Gavin did catch another fish on Thursday, a small tuna that was cooked by Gav and hungrily eaten for lunch that day. We have also been visited by flying fish and each morning walk the decks to remove the fish that didn't make the leap over KS after dark.
Finally today we had our longest visit from small dolphins since the beginning of this trip. We have achieved 1913nm so far and hope to make St Lucia by Wednesday 13/12/17, fingers crossed.
Explore Dream Discover. xx
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At 03/12/2017 09:56 (utc) our position was 17°08.41'N 037°56.85'W