Indulgence - The Indulgence crew's Top Ten while completing the ARC rally

Wednesday 12th DecemberCurrent Position: N 14o 47'357W 56o 00'.286 Current Speed : 7.2 knotsDistance to finish at Saint Lucia : 288 nm* * * * * Here is the crew's rating as to what was hot and what was not for the whole trip.TOP TEN : What's Hot1. Our buddy the fin whale, coming close, but not too close!2. Night passages, with a moon like a search light, starry skies and flash lightning in the distance3. Joleen's onboard cuisine (not commented by me)4. The 1,000 mile party5. Celebrating two birthday parties mid ocean6. Catching, tasting and eating Mahi Mahi / Dorado fish7. Losing communications from some competitors, and gaining communications with others (you know who you are and we did find you)8. The Broleens9. The first mid atlantic spinnaker hoist, brief but exciting. 10.. read more...

Indulgence - Email blackout and the homestretch....

Tuesday 11th DecemberCurrent Position: N 15o 26'.155 W 52o 08'.286 Current Speed : 6.5 knots Distance to finish at Saint Lucia : 511 nm* * * * * Email blackout and the homestretch….No matter how hard we tried over the past days, we simply could not get the connection between the sat phone and our computer working. No more emails. No more blogging. No more, no more, no more!!!!! Ahhhh…. help, it's a black out!. Breathe deeply Joleen. Genuinely though, with the cessation of email communications, I was upset. Very upset. It was like someone decided they were going to cut off my right arm and it made me realise how important communications are to me. I've enjoyed bringing you all on this journey with us over the past few weeks, reporting on the days activities and general banter onboard.. read more...

Indulgence - Singing in the rain

Saturday 8th DecemberCurrent Position: N 17o 30'.573 W 44o 12'.916 Current Speed : 7 knots Distance to finish at Saint Lucia : 983 nmIt began as a promising morning, with bright blue skies and a salt water shower to start the day. So far, I've been smothering myself in factor 50, as red hair and freckles do not agree with the sunshine and this morning called for LOTS of factor foxy. Denis showed us all his guilty pleasure by turning up Frank Sinatra very loud on the mp3 player and dancing in the cockpit with his new sunhat. Priceless moment.Well, well, well, the day was purely out to fool us all, as ever since we've been looking out at rain, rain and more of the same. We all feel right at home. We passed a milestone today. Less than 1000 nautical miles left on the clock. They are ticking. read more...

Indulgence - The good, the bad and the ugly.

Friday 7th DecemberCurrent Position: N 17o 51'.516W 40o 49'.509 Current Speed : 6 knots (motoring)Distance to finish at Saint Lucia : 1177 nm* * * * * The good, the bad and the ugly.So much for our predicated light airs and calm seas last night. Shortly after our last blog post, the rain set in. Hot. Sticky. Wet. Warm. Rain. We ate our evening meal below, peepingour heads above deck every so often hoping the squall would pass through. After a few hours it still hadn't and the wind was picking up. Time to reef our main and furl in the headsail. I reckon the lads were on a conspiracy against me, because they all sat below and jointly exclaimed " I'd be Fffff'd if I go up up there, Joleen it's your watch". Good luck now. And all three huddled together whimpering, while I sat in the cockpit,. read more...

Indulgence - 'Aslyum Indulgence' or 'When good crew go bad'

Thursday 6th DecemberCurrent Position: N 18o 05'.833 W 38o 40".129Current Speed : 7.3 knotsDistance to finish at Saint Lucia : 1301 nm* * * * *'Aslyum Indulgence' or 'When good crew go bad'The blog has become topic of the day, especially since we are completely ignorant of what is going on in the outside world. This afternoon a notebook was handed around, with all crew members asked to write a line in the effort to compose a limerick of some sort for our readers. Read on, and ask yourself, is it time to be a bit worried about crew mentalities at this stage, or will we make it one piece? Can you guess who wrote what?Captain Blood, Scully, Esmerelda and Bob Johnny Smart PantsWith dreams of coconuts a plenty and lobster thermador.Are we there yet?We added a bit of colour to our own 200 sq. read more...