Sunday 29 Nov
Race Day 7
It was another hard day at the office. Calm seas and sunshine were the order of the day. Sun cream all around. Really tough.
Good progress being made on “our strategy” just hope the wind knows! Crew morale is high and Challenger 1 is very much in everyone’s sights, focus, focus, focus…… Lots of sail activity so working of those digestives biscuits and cakes. Thank god, or none of us will be able to squeeze through the companionway.
Very little seen in the way of marine life yesterday except for the usual accompaniment of flying fish which still continue to baffle with many Darwinian theories of evolution being discussed in the early hours, ranging from the scientific to the truly bizarre in equal measure. Very heated debating!!!!
An exciting and entertaining 30 mins was spent watching Kirstie and Rosie trying to land a fish that was “THAT BIG!” and given the struggle it must have been of significant size. Unfortunately despite the heroic efforts of K and R, the fish won the day and got away, both I’m sure sporting bruises of the encounter.
Another beautiful sunset with stunning almost surreal cloud patterns spanning the horizon to the West. As the skies darkened the stars multiplied until the millions of stars that made up the Milky Way became clearly visible. So, amazing that at the change of watch, all off watch crew stayed on deck to enjoy the vista to a classical music soundtrack. You had to be there.
However the moonrise to the East surpassed even the Sunset with hues and colours that no artist could paint or camera capture, and with the rising of the nearly full and so bright moon the stars of the Milky Way disappeared, and so too the stargazers, to bed.
Consuelo and Steven
Our cunning plan is playing itself out and will hopefully continue to do so over the next four days. In a perfect world where the GRIB files are accurate, those boats up North will be having a grim old time and us down South will be enjoying moderate to good sailing winds with an improving wind angle. If it all plays out like the movie in my head, then we will take big chunks out of the lead of Challenger 1 and be ahead of them by Wednesday with a nice lead by the time they start to pick up better wind on Thursday. Then it is a drag race to the Rum Line with us hopefully maintaining our lead. Champaign, prises and dancing girls to follow…
Of course that is all in my head. In reality I think it will be an interesting battle, which may see us creep back a slender lead, but that all presupposes that the High Pressure up North will indeed bring light winds to those up there.
Life on board Challenger 3 is rolling on as the half way mark approaches. We are all very familiar with the routine now and the spinnaker gybes are becoming slicker and slicker. The kite has now been up since day 3 and it looks very much like we will be holding it until the finish. The repaired Yankee 1 still hasn’t had its showing, we may launch it at the finish just for the fun of it.
We have come up with a meal plan for the remainder of the trip although we are hoping to replace the last few days of “Tinned Surprise” with “Grilled Lobster and lots of Rum” at Spinnakers (a very nice beach restaurant in Rodney Bay). We have been sailing for over a week now, the fresh food is holding up well. The crew made the mistake of letting the skipper bake another round of Chocolate Brownies last night and I had to put out a minor fire and vent the boat to avoid mass death from smoke inhalation. Ah well can’t win them all. Silly crew.
Ricky (Skipper)