Adina - The final miles

Less than 100 miles to go and we are preparing the boat for arrival - warps and fenders are ready to go and our No 125 dodger displayed on our starboard side.
The wind has dropped this morning and this will delay our arrival until dawn tomorrow - probably no bad thing as it will be easier to see where we are going in the morning light.
Priorities ashore will be a proper shower, clean clothes, rum punch and breakfast - not necessarily in that order - but they will all take place ashore!
Since our last blog we have continued to head west and have noted that our last major sail change was on 30th November - 1300 miles ago - and that was a gybe! Hopefully we won’t have forgotten how to do it tonight when we go round Pigeon Island, just before the finish.
In contrast to this morning we have had up to 27kts of breeze for short periods yesterday and decided that Adina loves it - powering through the waves. An unfortunate by product of wind is waves and an enquiry from Andy as to whether the hatches were closed, shortly after waking up having been deluged - even the ARC Rally book took a direct hit!
The moon is waxing and rising later allowing for magnificent star spotting opportunities - the usual Plough, Orion’s Belt, Venus etc have been joined by The Crux, Mitaxa and Hyades - there is an asteroid shower expected on Friday morning.
Pete, our unofficial Ham radio operator, is yet to connect to the International Space Station but today received Caribbean tunes from the island of Barbados as we passed by.
We have had our water-maker on to top-up our tanks and allow for refreshing fresh water showers today - an absolute delight.
Pressure remains to drive the boat as fast as possible - we are now all sleeping better so when the oncoming watch arrived on deck they didn’t realise the boat was reefed and wondered why we were sailing so slowly! They obviously then waited five minutes and shook out the reef adding a couple of knots to boat speed.
Whilst heading west we have been developing new ways of doing things - the latest was slicing bread horizontally to provide more structurally sound slices - on reflection we have decided not to ‘mess with the recipe’ and think some time ashore is needed sooner rather than later.
Our next blog will be to tell you we have arrived - it will be short - but thank you for reading these blogs and we hope they helped you to keep you informed. We have enjoyed your emails and all of us have had an absolute blast - thank you Adina for taking us on your latest adventure.
#adventuresofadina