‘Frustrating lack of wind day’
Hi everybody……What kind of word shall I use to describe today…..frustrating!?!?……I awoke at 6.00 boat time (we are now 2 and half hours behind UTC as we move the time back every 3 days by half an hour)….we were not moving very fast about 4’ish knots in 10 knots of wind. I went into my fiff, faffing of sails out, trying cutter rig (which worked until wind dropped further),daggerboards up/down, oh all sorts of tactics applied…..and then because still to no avail I put on the forward thrust of the engine which was already on for battery charging. Yes I know we have conceded, very sad but we are not going to get there otherwise. Then I encouraged Freyja and Lucy to do a wind chant and dance (I have the video) and in all our girly ‘frustration’ (before the men arose for the day) we decided to make some agnostic wind angels out of our recycling material…..we threaded them on a cord and they now grace the cockpit, flapping in the LIGHT breeze. It worked briefly, wind rising and 6 knots of SOG achieved. The day then became lightly squally, Rod squeezed every drop of wind out of each of them (about 24knots) to scurry forth towards the west. It all died down after that and again the engine unfortunately went on until just before sundown. The wind filled in again at 16 knots plus and we are making 7 knots plus SOG.
To add to the frustration, or FOMO (fear of missing out)l we heard that our lovely friends Tamara and Eric on ‘Sea Child’ have arrived in St Lucia….fabulous news as this completes their circumnavigation which has taken 9 years….but we are not there to kick up our heels and whoop with joy with and for them. But huge congratulations to them….we know they are there and waiting, we will join them just as soon as possible.
A executive decision was made to raise the crews spirits this evening. We have all had a medicinal G & T on the trampoline as the sun went down….it has hit the spot and worked a treat. The evening was gorgeous, ‘Bimble’ sailing on with her two head sails majestically flying. Much merriment and mirth was had until the sun dipped down on our 13th night on the Ocean.
It was at lunch today (prepared by Lucy, Sweet potato, butter bean and squash curry, left over bolignaise, salad and other yummy bits) that Freyja yelled out ‘dolphins’!!!….she leapt up, fell over by tripping over her sarong (she is going to have a bruise)……we all rushed to the gunnals and forward to the trampoline. Two adults and a tinny tiny baby dolphin had come to play. It was so special to watch how the baby scooted about in perfect unison with its mummy as they criss crossed our bow wave. We got slightly concerned as the baby darted off north and the mummy seemed oblivious but after a couple of minutes she went after ‘junior’ and that was the last we saw of them.
A bird also circled our boat today,…could be a brown sort of tern, it wasn’t in my book of Caribbean birds. I thought it was going to land it flew in so close. Then we realised that it was using our boat displacement that causes the flying fish to shoot out of the waves to then to divedown to catch them. It stayed a while and then flew off east.
Freyja and I did a jig saw puzzle….it was one of boats at anchor in a tropical turquoise sea…OH in our dreams…but a reality 5 or so days time as we hope to be arriving at the end of next week, all being well. The puzzle had a lot of blue, blue sky but it kept us occupied as we chatted about life and stuff.
So for others of the crew it was reading books, watching films, e-mailing and journal writing, cooking, contemplating life……All is well and we are speeding as fast as we can across the 820 miles left until we make St Lucia.
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