Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 17

Day 17.We are officially out of coffee.This is a disaster, especially as we were doing well with all the annoying random things that go wrong on a sailing boat!At least we have started to go fast again now, which is good because if we don't arrive soon we will be sailing in zombie mode. Now we are counting down the miles even more eagerly. Just over 200nm to go now!- Franek writing for the Jua Kali Report.. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 16

Day 16 on board Jua Kali.Overall the wind has been fairly light for the past 24 hours aside from some rainy squalls at the beginning of the day.This has meant that we needed to change tactics a bit, it's no use trying to sail as deep as possible (to sail the shortsest distance) if we are barely moving! So we have decided to sail at higher angles than before leading to some experimentation with sail plans that the boat doesn't normally see.Also experimentally the fishing team is testing out using the suicidal flying fish that we find on the boat each morning as bait/lures as we are out of proper ones. This has yet to be successful but its good to try something, hopefully we catch anything other than the weed which is slowly becoming more prominent. Unfortunately the light wind has meant a. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 15

Day 15. After the squalls passed we carried on in the right direction. As the wind started to weaken our Art division started to take over - playing music, taking pictures and trying to translate stories to a mix of English and French.The distance to St Lucia is reasonable enough to start making plans. For most of the crew it's all about eating something other than freeze dried food and drinking beer. The more we talked about it though the weaker the wind became so eventually we had to stop to not miss the flight home - we will be there! - Jan, Darek and Franek writing for the Jua Kali Report.. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 13

Rain rain go away, and don't come back! Day 13 has without a doubt been the wettest day so far for Jua Kali.Multiple squalls came through overnight bringing all of the wind and rain they could muster. Some were avoided but most we decided to take and stay on course.These continued well into the morning and although the rain has now stopped it is still pretty windy!Unfortunately overall these probably slowed us down significantly for the past 24 hours, hopefully the competition had similar conditions otherwise we may have lost out a lot.Still, life goes on. Everyone is happy watching the miles tick down, about 700 to go now! Talk is beginning about what everyone wants to eat first once on land, a conversation that is sure to continue for the next few days until we arrive.Quote from the. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 12

Day 12. The last 24 hours, sailing with a reduced wardrobe of sails, started with praying for more wind. (We had 12-15kts the guys just wanted more - Alex) We were so desperate to catch some that we've developed a semi-god "Baba Gayu" from one of our crew members. We sacrificed half of our food to make him happy enough to bring us wind!It worked, but came with a price as a lot of rain came in the package. After that everything became better ending up with 30kt gusts in the middle of the night.Tuna ate our last lure so now we are fishing using home made lures out of an old bit of line. Not sure if it will work or not but whatever, we are just happy to be here!We passed the 1000nm marker to St Lucia. Now it's getting to us that completing this trip is really happening!- Franek writing for. read more...