Islay - Land!!!

Ten miles to go but the ocean has decided not to let us go yet. All daylong we had squalls with wind, lots of rain followed by lack of wind. The‘rambling’ of the rig is driving us crazy. Perhaps our dinner last night:great steak with greek salad accompanied by a delicious Oyster Baysauvignon blanc. The bottle was donated by the Katherine for a specialoccasion.Anyway, ten miles to go. Did we just spent 16 days at sea? It feels likeonly six,or eight. Time passed by with an incredible speed. Overall weenjoyed it very much. The special moments we remember most aredinners andphilosophical discussions in the cockpit underneath the stars. Catching 7fishes and ate a few of them. Relaxing inside while outside we have massivewaves and 30-35 kn of wind.Will we do this again? Every time (this is our. read more...

Islay - measurements

We are on 3/4th of the voyage of 2800 NM and enjoy every day. For an outsider it may look boring and the same every day. This is however not the case. Somehow every day is different and brings new ‘excitements’. As we make progress we keep a close eye on the DTD (Distance to Destination). The umber becomes more ‘understandable’ as it became below 1000 NM, 803 as I write this. The SOG (Speed over Ground), although the ocean is 5KM deep we still look at our speed over the ground, is an average speed of 7.5 knots (at times 8). Speed is everything (while keeping the boat together) because with the current average speed we will arrive in St.Lucia around happy hour on Thursday. So: every knot or mile counts. The weather is not as constant as it would typically be. The low brought rain,. read more...

Islay - Times goes by...

We are 8 days at sea now and living the passage maker's life.A typical day starts with your shift, in my case at 0400: cup of coffee with previous watchman Marcel: check our position, the weather, sea state, and new e-mails. During the shift time passes by quickly as you may read a book or just look at the billion stars. At 0800 Peter is awake and joins me in the cockpit. I go to bed for a few hours.At 1200 the Yellowbrick tracker transmits our position to the ARC organisation. We put our position in the log and make a nice cross on the large map on the wall. So far the daily distance was good with 175/196 NM. Peter makes lunch; bacon and eggs or even wentelteefjes. Around 1300 we download mail and the fleet positions. Marcel made a new app to convert all reported positions to an app. read more...