Blue Pearl - we have arrived!!!

After a slightly stressful last 10 miles with a squall, no wind then beating into wind trying to avoid a tiny fishing boat with no lights, we found our way to the marina this morning. Having not corrected time in small increments during the crossing we were faced with a 2 hour time difference which made it abit confusing! Safety mooring on the super yacht pontoon for a few hours we then moved to our permanent berth. We are nicely located and now all checked in with the marina and customs, I made the most of fewer people on boat to get rid of the dirt and salt form the cockpit, now we can sit without getting our free clothes salty. We are all quite tired but glad to have arrived, I don’t think it has fully set in yet that we’ve crossed the Atlantic, maybe by tomorrow it will have!!. read more...

Blue Pearl - Log: last full day at sea.

After another night of dodging squalls we had a few drops of rain this morning which stopped just after the hatches were all closed, typical. We are definitely getting better at dropping the spinnaker during the night and managed it much smoother last night even though the moon wasn’t up yet to light the foredeck. We have quite abit of company now from other boats and can see Cupid and Wild Goose on the horizon, as we get closer to land a suspect we will see more as everyone’s courses converge! We had to gybe this morning in order to get on course and it turns out we are going a little faster on this gybe as well an added bonus.. read more...

Blue Pearl - Blue Pearl Log

This morning we have the company of a few sea birds who are circling the boat and diving into the water in search of their breakfast, at this stage the water does look very inviting and I am looking forward to having a swim once we reach Grenada. Last night just before my watch started, I woke up and looked at the chart plotter, I was a little alarmed to see a large tanker coming straight for us and not very far away! Coming up on deck and looking I could see its lights very clearly, it was probably 500 meters away, a bit close for my liking. As it slowly ghosted past we could see its silhouette against the lighter sky, this was definitely the closest we’ve come to another ship on the whole passage even including the other ARC boats. As we are getting closer its exciting to be able to. read more...

Blue Pearl - Blue Pearl Log. Under 500 miles!

Yesterday while finishing off dinner I spotted something large and orange in the water, my first thought was a liferaft, but the objects shape soon confirmed that was not the case. Through the binoculars it was still hard to make out what this mystery object was, it was oblong in shape and was floating by at great speed. I think dinner must have been more interesting for everyone else as no one wanted to look at it through the binoculars. I guess that’s a good think though as I cooked and if all the dinner had gone flying with everyone diving to have a look maybe my cooking isn’t as good as I thought! But that didn’t happen and we watched it float off into the distance.Its great to see the big mile roll overs and during the night I watched as the miles ticked down and came under 500, its. read more...

Blue Pearl - Blue Pearl log

With the winds now slightly increased we are making good progress and our 24 hour distance yesterday was 160 miles, which is more like it! During the night we had our first squall of the trip, just before we switched watches the wind changed a bit and the rain started. I helmed through the squall as I was the quickest to get my waterproof jacket on, which soon passed over. We were on the look out for squalls for the rest of the night but the two that we spotted didn’t come to anything. We have a few boats around us this morning and Henry is currently chatting on the radio to a non ARC boat called BEA that has been nearby overnight. Apparently they were trying to contact us for a few days, and sounded very excited when Henry replied this morning!. read more...