Today was a day
of proper Trade Wind sailing.
I almost wrote
perfect. The perfect day would have been with steady wind, full sails and 6
knots on the clock leaving us 144 miles closer to St Lucia. As it was, we had a
day's run of 122 miles, which left us 119 miles closer to St Lucia with 190 or
so miles to go. The Skipper has sent a guarded Estimate Time of Arrival to Rally
Control, and has been walking around with his fingers crossed ever since. You
will have to wait in a state of tension and expectancy until the reveal, the
time of which is also a closely guarded secret. The Crew have also sealed their
guesses selecting the time that we cross the finish line, and they too will be
revealed in due course. I suspect that they will all be proved
wrong!
The rest of the
day had its usual challenges of changing the sails and their trim to suit the
slight changes in wind strength and direction. But, with the exception of one
squall which gusted to over 30 knots at 9 am ship's time, it was all routine
stuff. The only point of discussion was that of the missing miles. The Skipper
will have to make a written declaration as soon after our arrival as he can in
which he declares how many miles we have actually sailed and how many hours we
have used our engine. The rest of the crew will have to sign their agreement.
But what will happen about the missing miles? (you will recall that these are
the difference between the miles we have sailed and the distance Cleone has
actually made in the right direction - Ed). The Skipper claims that the crew
have taken these miles and used them for their own purposes. The crew counter
that the skipper has made them sail more miles than needed, and that he owes
these miles to them. There are mutterings of days' pay changing hands in
recompense. If the discussion goes much further, the resulting shindig could
make Captain Bligh's troubles on HMS BOUNTY look like a teddy bears' picnic. (I
cannot understand this. None of them are getting paid anything to do this - Ed).
Of course, everybody knows that, depending on your point of view, you get much
less or much more out of sailing than you put into it. The latter is of course
the truth, and that is why we yachties are so fanatical about
it!
All are well on
board, and whilst enjoying the sailing, we are greatly looking forward to our
arrival soon in St Lucia.
With very best
wishes and love to you all,
James,
Francesca, Louisa and Kaya
Yacht
Cleone
At
sea
Position at
1200UTC on 15 Dec 2024:
N14deg57min
W057deg47min