Day 18: Let’s go fly a kite
We have wind! Its gentle, its steady and we are moving. All
good. And we are all feeling good. We have had our kite flying all
day and have started to make steady progress towards land. Occasionally
the land we are heading to is Saint Lucia – occasionally not. The wind
just needs to veer around a little to give us a consistent course, but what’s a
few degrees out amongst friends?
Our cruising chute is looking magnificent. It’s much prettier than
the RAV-4 we traded in to purchase her. She is doing us proud. She
is also the perfect sail for us at the moment with the on-going concerns we have
with our rigging. Several days ago I mentioned that we had put a steel
band around the base of our mast to secure the vang. This was to help support
and preserve the integrity of the rivets. Well we have now lost one!
We have rigged a block and tackle vang, and a block and tackle restraint at the
end of the boom to secure things further. We have also reported our
situation to ARC Rally Control. We have been in light winds so it has not
had any further stress, and we will keep the end of the mast within the
footprint of the boat to limit the load on the boom vang. This together
with a careful sail plan should hopefully prevent things from worsening.
All this means that we are safe, but will be slow. We are still aiming to
get to Saint Lucia before the finish line closes next Friday. We are
dreaming of being greeted by smiley faces and a tray of rum. This is
becoming even more important as we finished our boat rum today. The pirate
song that we taught our children when they were younger is coming back to haunt
us ‘A bottle of rum to settle the tum and that’s the life for me –
hey’.
Along with the wind we had another milestone today. I am on watch
this evening with bare legs. My thermal leggings are no longer
needed. Its a first for Ewen too, on handover he was not wearing his
woolly hat and Jacket. Things are hotting up!
Our cooking is becoming more and more creative as our fresh ingredients
dwindle. Today we were proactive and Cal made a stunning tortilla with
some of our remaining eggs. It’s now in our freezer for another day.
Our philosophy has become ‘use it or loose it’. We have enough oranges left to
have daily fresh juice, but even with our best efforts I cant see us getting
through all of the onions and lemons. So much of the fruit and veg have
been vulnerable to bruising and the heat, but these two seem mightily resilient
and we haven’t lost one to natural wastage. We have a melon left which we
hope to have tomorrow. There is a little trepidation with this as the last
one had started to ferment and was ‘interesting’!
All is quiet on board. Its 2 am and the gentle swoosh of the water is
kissing the humming of the flying kite. The moon is bright and casting
trails of light on the ocean. The sea is flat and the winds are
steady. I feel totally alive and at peace. I am beginning to
remember why I wanted to do this again...