Mairmade - Day#9 Update

The sun has set on our 9th day at sea, and what a day it's been!

At 1pm today we recorded a respectable 24 hour total of 174nm for a total passage sailed of 1371nm, and still no engine hours!

The winds have been very similar for the past four days with 10-12 knots in the early morning, strengthening to 15-20 knots by the afternoon and on through much of the night. The wind directions has been a challenge with the wind blowing directly at St. Lucia and our inability to go directly downwind! We got a couple of great days from Jeremy (the gennaker) before he had to go on house arrest, and now the last two days from Chloe (the Code-0). Chloe has been a champ and unlike Jeremy she does play well with others, although she has her limits too. Wing on wing in 15 knots of rolling sea ain't her gig. She doesn't mind however flying solo deep downwind, and so it was with regret that we furled her shortly after sunset tonight.

We're now flying just the main with a single reef, boomed out and prevented as our overnight setup.

This is a bit slower in SOG, but because we can point straight at St. Lucia with this setup, we'll make better VMG.

Enough of all that technical sailing stuff, something bizarre happened today: After sailing over 1300 miles, one of our fellow ARC boats, passed within 2 miles of us. We were on opposite tacks, and just had a good chat on the VHF radio with a little friendly rivalry. Then about 30 mins ago, they passed behind us again this time even closer; the VHF conversation this time (in the dark of night) was matter of fact about negotiating a safe passing...

The boat, Skye Blue, was on the pontoon in Las Palmas right by us, and we became good friends with the owners Stephen and Malene Stephen is from Scotland, as are most of their 8 crew members.

Very bizarre to chat with them out here like we were chatting last week on the pontoon.

In other news: we put Jeremy's sock back on today (he only has one). He lost his sock when he went swimming the other day, so it was a bit of a challenge to put his 70 foot sock on! He remains under house arrest, but we do have a plan for replacing the broken halyard should the sea state allow it 😛ore about that later if it happens.

In our spare time, of which there was very little with the numerous sail changes and gybes, we finished the Christmas decorating. Special thanks to my Mum for the knitted sign, and also the DELICIOUS fruit loaf which we had for desert tonight.❤️

Goodnight from the Mairmade Crew.