Day 21: Wonderful tonight
We are speeding along. Its 01.30 am, the moon is bright and casting a
silver patina on the water that glistens and moves in harmony with the movement
of the sea. The waves are large and ‘up our chuff’ and LC is just riding
over them with ease. We are twissle rigged and reefed in. The wind
is 25 knots with occasional higher gusts and we are averaging 7 knots.
It’s wonderful tonight.
Last night we crossed one of my thresholds with under 500 miles to
go. Today we crossed another. We could now motor all the way to Saint
Lucia and not run out of diesel. This is a real plus to know that that is
an option if needed. Tomorrow we should pass my next milestone of
200 miles to go when we are then in helicopter rescue range. After that
its all plain sailing into Saint Lucia where we hope to arrive on
Wednesday.
Today we almost caught a fish! There was great excitement when the
reel started to run, and then even more with the effort needed to start reeling
it in. We could see a huge fish occasionally breaking the surface of the
water and our excitement rose. It came crashing down when the line went
slack and it swam away. We think we know why aren’t catching any
fish. Tonight we sang our boat song ‘On the happy boat La Contenta’ which
Cal had written a while ago. Mid way in there is a line ‘Three weeks in
and still no fish’. Cal burst out laughing and said – ‘That was a bit
prophetic – I must be to blame’. As Ghandi on said ‘Our thoughts become
our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, and our actions become our
destiny’. We are now considering a rewrite of that verse!
A while ago I extolled the virtue of lee cloths. I can now see that
they have another important function. Thy remind me of a Catholic
confessional box. You lie there knowing that someone is on the other side
but you cant see them, and cant touch them. All you can do is talk to the
screen and wait for a considered reply. In the absence of facial
expression voice intonation becomes interesting. Dave and I have now had
several of these conversations and are finding a lot of humour in them.
We have had a lot of laughter on board. LC lives up to her name and
is a very happy boat. She is a joy to be on and she’s sailing wonderfully
tonight.
Update: Pink marigold glove 2: Professional fish lure
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