UPDATE: WE HAVE CROSSED THE FINISH LINE AT 05:19 SUNDAY DEC 14TH AND ARE
NOW HAPPILY MOORED UP IN THE RODNEY BAY MARINA. WE HAVE TREATED OURSELVES TO A
RESTAURANT BREAKFAST AND ARE RELAXING BEFORE STARTING OUR CLEANING SPREE!
MORE ABOUT THIS LATER, BUT, FIRSTLY, HERE IS THE BLOG WRITTEN BEFORE BUT WE
COULD NOT SEND.
Today: Ch, Ch, Changes actually made; Mid Ocean Rescue!; Official St
Lucia Greeting party; the Really Official Greeting Party!;
Happy Saturday Dear readers, as I write this, we are about 70nm from
St Lucia and the finishing line! At our current pace we should cross the line
around 05:00 Sunday morning—not exactly the time on our original plans, but, we
take what the sea will give us (doesn’t that sound, well, so “old man and the
sea”like). So, if you are up at 05:00 Sunday morning St Lucia time (9:00 am
London Sunday morning, 4:00 am NY Sunday morning midnight Saturday
Vancouver, 11:00 pm Saturday night in Christchurch) then spare us a thought as
we likely will be crossing the line, then taking down the sails for the last
time this trip, motoring to our berth and getting greeted by—no kidding, a
representative from the St Lucia tourist board with a basket of fruit and a rum
punch, which apparently carries quite a punch. Exactly 15 mins later, the only
sound you will hear from the boat (if you were here) is us sleeping!
We have had a beautiful day of sailing today,but, lets first catch up on
the last 24 hours... got your coffee, breakfast- hey, splurge today after all it
is the weekend! Wait until you hear what we are having for dinner, we splurged.
First we must confess that, despite celebrating ch, ch, changing the clock
and breaking our dry boat policy in the process—for, the second—oops, third time
(half way, turning right and changing the clock). In our desire to celebrate the
ch, ch, change of the clock, we actually forgot to ch, ch, change the clock. So,
as you would expect, we had to celebrate again—just kidding. Instead, we had a
quiet, yet dignified ceremony to ...ch, ch, change the clock. Some of you have
challenged the importance of the event and are suggesting that it was created to
justify a wee beer—we are choosing not to dignify those comments with a
rebuttal. (Honestly, we can’t think of one).
Our final full evening of sailing was not without its moments- the clear
sky as we went to bed slowly transformed into a cloudy ceiling with plenty of
dark clouds posing possible threats to the welfare of the mighty Libeccio and
her crew. While indeed the squalls did show up, but, with the amount of practice
that we have been getting recently, we successfully dodged the squalls and
didn’t even break out in a sweat. Jane had so much fun tacking this way and
that, she thought it was her fastest watch yet. Go Team!
As the sun rose, the clouds started to retreat to the horizon until we were
enjoying a cloudless sky. The winds moderated from the night until they were
between 10 and 15kn, perfect for a Izzy. I’d like to say there was a lot more
exciting things that occured during the day, but, honestly there wasn’t... a
perfect day of sailing.
That is except for, (dramatic music please, dah dah dah dummmm) the Mid
Ocean Rescue. oooohhh,aaahhh... sounds pretty exciting- in reality, we had to go
up the mast to the first set of spreaders (30 feet up) to bring back down the
line that we use for courtesy flags that had somehow managed to get caught up at
the top. So, not really a mid ocean rescue at all—i just thought it sounded
dramatic enough that you would be intrigued! Be honest, if I said that we were
going to recover a courtesy halyard, would you bothered to have read it?
We did get a few chores done in preparation for landfall- getting out the
fenders, mooring lines as well as putting away a few of the things we have no
more need for such as the boom preventer lines and blocks (pulleys to us
non-mariners). As we are going to be in a marina for the next month and we don’t
use shore water, we have also filled up both of our water tanks. Pretty exciting
stuff isn’t it.
What was exciting was the arrival of the official marine welcoming
committee from St Lucia—a pod of dolphins must have been sent as official hosts
and it was a lot of fun to see them jumping through their waves on their way to
us. It was almost as if one of them had thrown out challenge to the others to
see who was first to Libeccio. We did have their company for 15 – 20 mins and as
always it lifts your heart to see them twisting and turning so quickly as they
play in front of the bows of the boat.
If we have counted the calendar correctly, it will have taken us 19 days
and nights to cross approximately 3,000nm. Our passage time is not
particularly fast as we set out to take a cautious approach - choosing the
southern route rather than the quicker northern route and then taking our time
to allow the crew to get acclimatised before putting up more sail at night and
then even longer before we stated flying Izzy at night. We are happy that we can
sail at the faster paces with clocking in the top 10 fastest boats for three
days this past week. Moreover, we have had a lot of fun along the way and dined
like Kings and Queen.
After dreaming and scheming about the crossing for so long including years
of following blogs of others as they made the crossing while i was eating my
breakfast from my desk at work—I can honestly say that I am not in a hurry for
it to finish. What is true, is that Jane and I are very much looking forward to
taking our time to visit the islands in the Caribbean- some we have been to
before, but, the majority will be a new experience.
So it is with mixed feelings that we approach the finish line of the ARC.
Best wishes,
The Crew of Libeccio