Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 12 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

In the words of a young lady (in loose terms) Britney Spears "Oops I did it
again", its not senility, honest, its just losing track of days out here,
but here we are day 12, Our ETA is fairly established now, we will arrive on
the 5th, we're just not sure when, we're definitely in the hands of the wind
gods on that one, if not the Swedish god of Volvo Penta!

Our time at sea has been a combination of amazement, wonder, bewilderment,
fascination, awe and at times frustration, not being stuck on a boat miles
from anywhere, but not being able to GTS anything, "why do flying fish fly"?
or "How long would it take that spanner I dropped to reach the Ocean floor"?
we all have a ton of stuff were going to Google once we get Internet!

We saw our first ship in days today, a huge cargo ship from Venezuela and
also our first ARC+ boat came up briefly on AIS. I have to say its amazing
to think that 75+ boats left Mindelo at the same time as us and with the
exception of the racers at the front none are more than 10-20 miles away and
yet you don't really see anyone 2-3 days after leaving?

Looking at the position list, it looks like the majority of us will descend
on St Lucia around the same time window, Poor old Rodney bay marina, nothing
for weeks then all of a sudden in December 200-300 Ocean weary Yachts are
going to eat and drink them out of house and home, including a good few bob
in the Chandlers!

Over the last few days we have began to experience weed, not a quiet evening
with the Cheech and Chong stuff, but Sargasum, I'm guessing from the
Sargasso Sea, huge great carpets of it, I'm glad we're sailing and not on
engine, you wouldn't want any of that stuff up your intake! Would play havoc
with your impeller!