Day 17
The sixteenth day of our journey lies
behind us and again we got one little step closer to our final destination. By
now, we are only about 350 more miles from the shore – a tiny distance taking
into account all the miles we have travelled so far. On the one hand, it is
evident that we are all awaiting our arrival in St Lucia with great
anticipation. After all, the reunion with family and friends, a motionless and
spacious bed, a sinfully long shower, some private time and an unrestricted activity
radius are all prospects that appear very attractive after almost three weeks
at sea (we are probably the only boat on which the departure from the boat will
result in a immediate downgrade in
the food variety and quality; yesterday, on day 16 (!!!) of our trip, we, for
example, had an excellent Vitello Tonnato
for lunch and an Indonesian Fish
Laksa for dinner). On the other hand, however, for most of us, the arrival
in St Lucia also directly precedes our return to our normal everyday lives, to
problems and challenges that we might have gladly forgotten or pushed aside in
the last weeks and a usually quite hectic (and cold!!!) Christmas time. By now,
we have become so used to our boat routine and the way in which we just live on
a day-by-day basis that it would be easy to continue like that for another
couple of days, weeks, years…
Now that we are closing in on St Lucia we
are also starting to cross path with other ARC boats again. For the last 36
hours, we had another, smaller boat tailing us just out of sight. I cannot deny
that it filled me with a slight sense of pride when we learnt over the radio
that they had had surprisingly little luck with their fishing. When we told
them in turn that we had to discontinue our fishing efforts a couple of days
ago since we still had too much fish in our fridge the radio connection suddenly
broke off…
Otherwise, the day yesterday passed without
any major incidents. The sun was shining, winds were steady and the Thula
lounge area was well frequented. In anticipation of our arrival in St Lucia, we
held a little Caribbean warm-up celebration in the evening. With steel drum
music pounding from our outside speakers, we enjoyed our first sip of rum coke,
a couple of ice-cold beers and some Cuban cigars. Now, we are finally ready for
our arrival!!
Many wishes from the Thula,
Jakob