Friday 2nd December
A Moment of Reflection
Well yesterday was my Mother watch, leaving ‘C’ watch watch-leaderless, heaven knows what trouble they will be plotting in my absence, but keep up the speed and save me froma dunking (more on this later) ?? Huge thank you to so many of the crew across all watches who helped me with the duties of food preparation, washing up and cleaning.
For lunch I cooked pesto-pasta with sun dried tomatoes and olives topped with shavings of parma ham from the hind leg we now have hanging in the galley -- photo on boat camera --
As most of my family and friends back home will recall I detest pesto-pasta, but decided to face my nemesis head on. The crew seemed to like it and to be honest I did enjoy it myself, now a changed man.
Dinner was chilli con carne plus a pan of extra hot sauce and then after final wash up bed at 9pm, slept through to 6am –heaven.
With less than 999 miles to go there is much talk about St Lucia, and of course beating the other Challenge boats. This morning is a beautiful sunny sky and we are flying the spinny.
As I look around we are still alone in this huge ocean and as the ‘family’ of Challenge 3 go about our daily chores, some sailing, some eating and some cleaning I reflect on how lucky I am to be aboard a boat with such beautiful people who are so giving with their support and assistance towards any jobs and tasks asked of them.
I am going to use this blog to thank my own family and friends back home for their support and backing. I received a large number of good will messages before I left that spit of dirt we call the UK and I hope you are all following the blogs and tracking on Tall Ships, First Class Sailing and ARC16 websites.
It is amazing that as an amateur sailor (although to my family and friends I’m an Ocean Warrior) we can sign up and sail across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s thanks to the crew, watch-leaders, mate and skipper who collectively help create a safe environment for us all to challenge ourselves. Outside of our boat, The Bubble, there are others I need to recognise that without Tall Ships maintaining these Challenge boats, without First Class Sailing for organising the opportunity to join a boat and with ARC16 putting on the race/cruise/regatta, then I wouldn’t be here writing this blog, Thank You.
So its time for other things, one of which is to review the average distance covered by each watch in an hour, while tight it looks like I’m going for a dunking !!!
Peter (Watch Leader)
Please visit this link on First Class Sailing website for a more detailed blog https://www.firstclasssailing.com/blog/category/arc/