Aretha - 17 34N 43 57 W - Highlights from 5th December 2014

It’s 1004 miles to go to St Lucia. It’s the most gorgeous evening - I’m on deck in shorts and lifejacket only - the sky is clear and the moon is so bright you can see for miles. Its calm and peaceful on board.

Here’s the top 5 highlights from our day today:

1) Light and variable winds meant sailing progress was slow. What to do? Obvious of course - turn the cockpit into a swimming pool by closing off the cockpit drain seacocks and filling it with buckets of sea water. The sea temp gauge tells me water temp is 31.6 degrees Centrigrade. Result - 3 happy children splashing and playing in the cockpit and throwing buckets of water over each other. The simple things in life.

2) International Adopt a Star Day. School project - find a constellation or star, learn about it, draw a picture and tell the rest of the crew about it. Here’s the stars / constellations we all chose:

Bluebell - Draco the Dragon
Columbus - Dorado
Nichola - Perseus
Jani - Pole Star
Paul - Sirius
Willow - Cassiopea (because it looks like a W)
Caspar - The Northern Cross

I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day working out what that all means.

3) Catching a one metre long fish. The debate still continues as to whether it’s a Barracuda (Caspar’s theory) or a Wahoo (everyone else;s theory)

4) A fellow ocean visitor came to see us today. A French 52 foot Catamaran. They came within 100m and waved to us. Strange to see visitors 1000 miles out to sea.

5) Our bread making led by Jani continues to improve. Today was the best yet - adding more yeast to the pre-made bread mix seemed to do the trick. Fresh bread, bacon and tomato sandwiches, hungarian bean soup. Yes, we are continuing to eat well.

And not forgetting that our broken toilet pump - we now have the spare part on order and due to be sent to St Lucia (unless anyone wants to bring it out to us to avoid the Customs complications).

All is well aboard Team Aretha and we have 7 smiley faces.

Over and out.