Blue Pepper - Day 15, 3/12

The last couple of days have been rather more eventful - after the skipper ruminated that ‘it would be nice to experience a proper Atlantic squall’, the weather gods immediately obliged with a procession of them. We all got soaked, the boat got a great wash down and for a short time it all felt a bit like being in the English Channel, except a lot warmer!A few shackles and ropes got found out and there have been a lot more sail changes and a few trips to a wet, pitching foredeck - but Blue Pepper has carried us through marvellously. Today was back to sunshine and fast sailing under the spinnaker. It’s beginning to feel that we are closing in on the end of this voyage - we are now less than 700m from St Lucia and clipping along at 8 knots most of the time. The crew, still in great form,. read more...

Blue Pepper - Blue Pepper - Day 13, 1/12

Here we are at sea in the tropics on the first day of December and it’s difficult to relate to the run up to Christmas at home!Aboard Blue Pepper we are all very relaxed and enjoying the downhill trade wind ride. Our course is now set directly for St Lucia 1010 miles west of us. The days are hot down below but perfect under the bimini and at night. Yesterday we had our ‘Middle of the Atlantic’ celebration. After the excitement of which, today we turned slightly to roll straight down the waves to minimise the rolling stress on the washing machine and had a laundry day!. read more...

Blue Pepper - Blue Pepper Day 11 - 29/11

The good ship Blue Pepper is now lust below 14deg N latitude (about the same as St Lucia) and we are pointing properly westward and rolling along downwind in the now settled trade winds of around 15knts. Today we have come across sargasso weed for the first time, some of which is getting caught in the hydrogenerator although it seems to be shrugging it off.We are close approaching the mid point of the Atlantic and it certainly feels a big ocean with us just a small speck on it! The AIS plot is empty with no other boats anywhere near us. The provisions seems to be holding up well, we even have 8 unripe bananas left.. the supplies of tonic water however will go down to the wire!All good aboard Blue Pepper.. read more...

Blue Pepper - Blue Pepper - day 9, 27/11

Life aboard the good ship Blue Pepper is now well settled into the routine of ocean sailing, although the days vary greatly with the weather of course.Yesterday (Sunday 26th) was particularly special as Peter celebrated his 60th birthday in the middle of he Atlantic. The last of the lettuce was still in good shape as the base for a salad to go with the steak and a decent bottle of red, then some ship-baked cake - all of which made a proper birthday dinner. All the while we rolled along through our third continuous day under Parasailor, making 183 miles - our daily record so far.Today the weather has been a little more spicy! We planned to drop the spinnaker to deal with some chafe issues after several days aloft, but the gathering wind brought that decision earlier in the day - when we. read more...

Blue Pepper - day 6. 25/11

We have finally stopped our chase south seeking wind and today made our ‘turn’ broadly west to head down the trades towards the Caribbean. The wind is ideal and Blue Pepper is humming along happily (9.2 knots and 10.1 knots SOG as I write) and we expect to comfortably beat yesterday’s 172 miles by the morning. Some chafe challenges needed attention on the Spinnaker sheets today - after 4 days aloft - and we keep ‘nearly’ catching fish.. but we will crack it!Risotto for dinner tonight and a possible re-run of last night’s Name That Tune in the cockpit… :). read more...