Apologies for the delay – we’ve been busy sun bathing, fishing, cooking and
whale watching...but our in-house blogger will tell you more about that.
We’ve been in light and very fluky winds since Saturday and have made only
very slow progress. It looks like the boats ahead of us got into a better breeze
earlier and disappeared while we’ve been working hard to keep the boat moving.
Based on the latest forecast we should be in slightly stronger winds from
tomorrow and pick up the pace. Our routing shows that we still have to head
south-west for another day or two and then we can turn directly to St Lucia. We
all look forward to seeing proper trade wind conditions.
Hello hello from EH01 Marketing Director.
Well that was what the Performance Yacht Racing brochure promised... On
Saturday night we had a fab balmy evening and the star gazing season was in full
force using Gill`s star “glow in the dark” map. Starkers, Andras and Storme
think we identified Cassiopeia, Taurus & Gemini but wouldn`t bet the boat on
it just in case some star experts beg to differ.!! It was lovely having the
stars to look at it and also to guide us when helming. Sunday dawned bright and
sunny and the speakers were out and we were all sun bathing in various parts of
the deck, so chilled and a bit of a break after 12hour days working, we will
have to get our unions on the case.!! Then a pod of Orcha whales swam
by....amazing...blowholes and all the rest.! Today we had a lot of flying fish
swim by...
Time change
We are sailing south-west and have entered a new time zone so we are GMT
–1, each of the watches just added an extra half hour onto their shift.
Boat barter
It didn`t take us long to dispense with normal customs and begin bartering
like our ancestors. The most popular commodities are salt friendly shower
gel/shampoo, clothes pegs, external battery chargers and cordial alternatives
(Robinsons, i presume you are enroute..!).. The salt friendly shampoo is my key
one that I have had to trade as I had the very unfortunate incident of washing
shorts in a non-salt friendly product and let`s say that wasn`t the most
pleasant watch.. We also trade coffee/tea making and use of solar panels for
charging, it`s real back to basics trade..!
Boat living
Just to give you all an idea of what it is like living with 10 people on a
boat, 9 guys and 1 lucky girl..! There are 4 cabins: 2 forward (the front of the
boat) and 2 cabins aft (the back of the boat) and Andras the skipper has his own
as he is managing both watches and also for his hot tub security..! We all share
one head (toilet) which can be reached through the forward cabins (these are
4foot x 7foot) and any washing of dishes, clothes and oneself is done with salt
water, fresh water is ONLY to be used for drinking, hot drinks and some cooking.
A hot bunk system is used which means that both of the watches use the cabin
when you are off watch so everything needs to be stored neatly which is a bit of
a problem for some of the more “dynamic” crew! Also some of the
sailing gear, boots and shoes have become quite smelly due to the change in
weather conditions and luckily we had a Surfachem Shoe deodoriser whose active
ingredient masks the smell and breaks down the bacteria which cause it.
At the moment we only have 5 knots of breeze and are hoping this to fill in
and the stars to come out for our night watches, we have sailed 1272nm and have
@ 1700nm to go to sail to the Caribbean...!!
The EH01 Marketing director
Out