Fleet II - Log Monday December 5th - we've arrived!

So - we arrived at just after 5am Monday morning, ready to tie up at justafter 6 and be greeted by our welcome party – with hugs and rum punch.  Abottle of champagne and a few beers later, plus brunch on the waterfront, and webegan to realise that we’d done it!Overall we’ve been on the boat for 34 days, 25 of them at sea.  A bitmore wind would have been good, but apparently there have been worse years so weshouldn’t complain too much.  We’ve travelled some 3,000 miles (probably alittle longer given the route we took!), 45 degrees of longitude (west) and 14degrees of latitude (south).  We’ve burned around 200 litres of diesel,which is rather more than we wanted to; we ate all our fresh meat and fish, butstill have an abundance of apples, oranges and lemons that have. read more...

Fleet II - Log Sunday 4th December. Nearly there...

Hi - hope everyone had a good weekend! A mixture of sailing and motoring has left us just 80 miles to go over the next few hours –we aim to time our arrival for daylight Monday morning (nature permitting, ofcourse).  There is seaweed in the sea, we’ve seen a couple of other boats –civilisation is near!  But we’ve also seen another whale slowly takingbreath – not quite in inshore waters yet. So our second leg of 19 days/nights at sea is coming to a close. We’re all now looking forward to dry land, a drink or several (we’ve all beendry the whole time, despite having three cases of beer on board), and catchingup with those who have already arrived (which, for Peter and I, includes ourwives!).  Before then we’re looking forward to a full English (I guess thatshould be. read more...

Fleet II - Log Saturday 3rd December: nearly there?

Those of you following the Yellow Brick app will have seen we’ve made somegood progress over the last few days – its been great fun making higher speedsand stretching Fleet II’s legs a little.  So much so that we thought wemight arrive in St Lucia tomorrow – until mid afternoon the wind decided to easeoff again. She is such a tease!In any event, in the overall scheme of things, we are nearly there. Just 170 miles to go – arrival this time tomorrow at 7 knots (no chance!), morelikely Monday morning at 4 to 5 knots. We’ll let you know!Colin CBO. read more...

Fleet II - Log 2nd December: Slapped in the face with a wet fish

As I celebrated yesterday, we now have some wind and enjoyed a good day’ssailing.  We continued to do so this morning, staying north of the stormclouds, the turned our direction towards St Lucia around lunchtime.  Itdoes now feel like we’re on the final straight, albeit still with 400 miles togo.  ETA is now Sunday evening/Monday morning, which gives our wives threedays by themselves there – watch out St Lucia! This morning felt a bit like Bake Off.  Peter is well practiced atbread making, and embellished today’s offering with crunched almonds.  Kimprovided a second instalment of his very successful Pitta bread, while Keith hada go at lemon flavoured almond crunch biscuits, which were exceptional.  Wecontinue to eat very well!  Round two tomorrow? And. read more...

Fleet II - Log: Tuesday 29th November - random thougts

Another day of calm seas and very little wind – who would have thought theAtlantic would be like this?  What is also amazing is how clean and purethe water is.  Its so refreshing to bathe on the stern platform (safelysecured of course) with just soap and a few buckets of seawater – there’s noneed for a fresh water rinse.  We’re using it to wash dishes and clothestoo, tho’ it did leave the mashed potato a tad salty!   We’ve not physically seen another boat for around a week now, and itsprobably been four days since we saw one on the electronic navigation. Being on night watch last night was awesome – gazing up into the stars knowingthat we are the only people for miles around.  I took the opportunity toplay my music loud and sing along to some favourite. read more...