Bagheera - The one that got away

Where were you on the 1st? If it wasn't at the Bagheera Gala Christmas dinner then you missed the hottest invite in the Atlantic.

All the who's who made it out for what was a roaring success. There was a little bit of embarrassment when all the guests arrived on the red carpet to find that they had all been fitted by the same designer - green Bagheera t-shirt and grey shorts, but the show went on and everyone agrees it was a stupendous success.

Well that's how we bought in the month of December, with a delicious Christmas turkey and an almost flat calm day on the pond. Yes, the winds had dropped right off and we were now meandering along at a sedate 9 knots. The saving grace was that it was slowly swinging around to the north and it did mean that we finally had a chance to rig up the fishing rod and get a lure in the water. This we trolled unsuccessfully for a day and a half before we had a tap. And boy what a tap it was. Something gummed the lure for a few seconds and then struck and struck hard. The great beast had peeled off a good couple hundred meters of line before we even had the rod in hand. A huge flash of sunlight shot across the water as it breached and crashed back below the inky surface. Rob set himself and engaged the break ready to strike back, while Simon was busy getting caught up in the excitement and crash jibing the boat! Well Rob certainly put his back into things, winding and heaving back on the rod like a true deep sea angler until after about 5 minutes he realised that it was simply the fact the lure was nearly 300m behind the yacht and we were back up to around 11kts that we had no fish on the line. Old man and the sea, I think not. Shortly after this encounter the wind had truly picked up again and we were forced to retire prematurely from the fishing and get back to the task at hand.

The task at hand has very much come down to the wire. We are now less than 200 miles from St Lucia and things are definitely warming up. With our playlist compiled from every song with 'wind' in it on the Ipod and the resultant shift Bagheera has managed to pull clear of Stay Calm; however we are casting a weary eye over our shoulder at the fast approaching Big One. Big One have dived even more south than we and are definitely reaping the benefits. We are all well aware that if the winds don't shift again, then Bagheera will be piped at the post.

The crew are still very positive that we will get the slight swing we need to dive back down and get across the finish line 1st and I for one hope that we can get there soon as we are now completely out of chocolate and am getting withdrawals.