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La Cigale - Day 21 - 9 December - Recharging the batteries



Three weeks in. We thought we would be at St Lucia by now, but with just under 350 nautical miles to go, I, for one, am glad of an extra few days to sit out at the helm and commit to memory the ever changing, yet constant, view.

The sea state today is confused. The rollers have flattened out, but the waves are choppier, criss-crossing in any random combination of directions. The sun has been shining all day, and charging our solar panels nicely (for once!), without a shadow of a squall to be seen. We cruised along, with the jib out, at somewhere between 6 and 7 knots for most of the day.

As the wind dropped late afternoon, we swapped jib for gennaker and are now taking a punt on the frayed halyard not snapping for 48 hours. A risky manoeuvre as I can already see it twisting and turning at the top. We've attached the topping lift to it as well as a secondary safety, should the halyard break so, in theory at least, we would still be able to furl the gennaker and bring it down safely. We would, in all likelihood, lose the line down the mast (and would have to put a new one in) but hopefully not the sail. Hmmm. Clearly cabin fever is setting in, with this the final push to get as many miles in at speed while we can! We plan to keep the sail up until tomorrow evening, and, if it holds that long, then we will be in the home stretch in terms of fuel should the wind drop right away, as forecast. In the meantime, we are resting up and making the most of today's lull in drama. Having said that, we enjoyed a beautiful comedy of dolphins at dusk - a good few dozen in perfectly synchronised play at the bow. We can't yet smell land, but for us that is the first tangible sign that we are growing ever closer to shore...




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