Duplicat - Wednesday 18 December

Land ho!1030 local time we saw the peaks of the north end of St Lucia.Much nicer winds 22 -25 knots on our approach so code zero up and a sprint finish to the top of the island.Thanks to all the friends and family who have emailed us - it's so good to hear from you when you haven't seen a boat for days.ETA to finish line 1500.. read more...

Duplicat - Tuesday 17

198 to go this could be our last full day and night at sea. After days of nothing apart from a tanker we saw our first yacht for over a week last night.Wind and squalls a nuisance last night but this morning we have 20-25 knots and the crazy boys have put up the spinnaker. We have Barbados and St Lucia on the plotter!Highlight yesterday was the sight of a huge leatherback turtle in the swells going the other way!. read more...

Duplicat - Monday 16 December

No satcoms yesterday, apparently on Saturday night we crossed the boundary between systems and didn't realise we had to reset ours to the American one - but all working fine again.Weather appalling, since Thursday we have had between 22 and 32 knots of wind with some heavy squalls - highest wind speed 42 knots, fastest boat speed 18 knots and all with a little piece of jib up. Boat tracks well down the waves and we feel safe if not a bit battered and tired - just moving around is hard and the catering is a lot less fancy now than earlier in the trip!Biggest swell -estimated at 6m and many near that size yesterday.But 349 to go!!!!!. read more...

Duplicat - Sunday 14th 14.21 51.50

This is not really sailing, not able to fly anything bigger than a pocket handkerchief jib, we have forgotten what our spinnaker looks like - not been out of the hatch for days. This leg from Mindelo has been either calm and you need to motor or 30 knots of wind with a new record gust of 42 this morning. We had a day when we could fly our code zero earlier this week but that has been taken down and stowed away.Life on board has deteriorated as sleep is now hard due to the sea conditions and you expend so much energy just moving around or trying to do stuff.On the plus side we have a new speed record of 18 knots made this morning surfing down a huge sea and the distance to go has gone down to 525 with a time of arrival of just over 80 hours but of course that may well change.. read more...

Duplicat - Close encounter

You don't see another boat for days and days and then a huge 280m tanker on collision course pops up on the radar and AIS!Skipper called him and said that we would hold course and he very politely said they would move to starboard and we could pass port to port.Sun now shining again and wind eased to 23 knots but seas behind pretty big so go pros have been busy!tanker. read more...