It's been a fun few days on Mad Monkey and crew are counting down the days to the trophy, which comes in the form of a rum punch or 2! Our target deadline which is keeping us on the ball is mum's birthday on the 10th. We are having to make plans for what to do if we need to celebrate at sea --- or in St Lucia! I have been put in charge of wrapping some gifts we brought in Ibiza, although I've never had to wrap presents on a night shift before whilst being thrown around by an Atlantic swell! Crew morale has also been revitalised as friends on board pulled out a new jamon to replace the one we just finished, that is now swinging in the hammocks taking pride of place, but I don't imagine it's going to be there that long!
To make it feel more homely, last night we transformed the cockpit in to a cinema by bringing out some Bluetooth surround sound speakers and a big screen laptop; even the 'non-slip' matting struggled to hold the laptop as we rode over big waves, but the entertainment was well worth it, indeed some would say 'a break from Martin, Jon and Marco's play acting' was all worth the effort! (only joking lads :0) )
Fishing is still going well and 2 days ago we caught a fish we are yet to identify, a silver body of about 2kg, flat / rounded in profile with a distinctive black line going over the head and through both eyes; this discussion was brought up on the SSB radio net and we are still awaiting the conclusion...?
We are currently about 500nm from the finish and are praying for winds to come in from EEN, this would mean that we can continue to fly our spinnaker but this time head in the direction of St Lucia! On that note, there has been debate on the SSB net as to whether the quickest method is to pole out a foresail or to 'play the angles' and sail zig-zag, with half the crew coming from a racing background on board, there was no way skipper dad was going to settle for the slower / rocking and rolling sail going in a straight line!
Written by Josh