Gitana - Green flashes and showers!

Morning from the good ship Gitana!

Another rolling night on the ocean waves and we continue to count down
excitedly to the finish. Overnight was squall free! No reducing sail, no
tough steering, just gently heading along our course of 263 with the
occasional lift up to 270degrees with 6-8kts of boat speed and miles
dropping away.

> - That's no shooting star!
Highlight from last night has to be the preparing for the watch handover
just around 6am, watching the clock and the wind at 5.40am when all of the
sudden the boat is lit up like a Christmas tree! Something bright in the
sky behind me, incomprehensible at the time and then head switches to must
be a flare – turned to look, shouted for the skipper and then realised I
was looking a flaming green ball of immensely bright light falling from
the sky in the distance. I watched it as it faded on the horizon and sat
transfixed staring into the distance. There had been plenty of shooting
stars throughout the night, but I've never seen anything like it in my
life... meteorite! I wonder if there's a way to check if anyone else saw
it!

> - We see ships!
By the time I got back up again this morning to Dave's dulcid tones in the
cockpit, there was an almighty cheer as he saw a sail on the horizon! The
first sail we've seen in over a week! We wait for 9am before putting the
call out to see who's nearby and we get three replies! It's like buses,
you wait for ages, then three come at once! We chat with each boat in
turn, one is our previous 'chat' OCC friend TinTin, the others are Harlem
and Sofina, all ARC yachts and all in classes above us – which is great
for us! Each boat we spoke to was finding the lighter winds a challenge
and course to steer a bit flighty. Somehow, we've managed to steer our
course well and we're still making a good speed over the ground!

> - Morning fixings
After the excitement of the yacht on the horizon, Poppy (our autohelm) had
developed a little play over night, James had a look to find out she'd
worked her fixings loose, so a quick re-set and she's good to go – she's
been amazing! Water maker back up and running this morning, closely
monitoring it (40litres an hour back in to the tanks) which means
hopefully showers and a bit of cleaning can happen today – fingers
crossed! Even the skipper is taking a shower, so must be OK!

> - Q&A from TPA - a few more questions from my students at TPA...

> - How do you shower?
We do have the luxury of a water maker that converts sea water to fresh
water using power from the engine to run the water through filters and
into our tanks. When it's all working smoothly, showers are a go! In the
main heads (toilet/ washroom) there's a shower hose in the worktop, the
heads becomes a wetroom and off you go. We have to be really careful with
water, so quick hose on, wet down, hose off. Soap up, hose on, wash off,
hose off. Less than 2mins running time each (hair washing is a challenge,
but it's doable!)
We've got 3 options! 1. Heads down below, 2. A fresh water deck shower and
if we have limited fresh water, option 3? Buckets of sea water over the
head – as ably demonstrated by Dave a few days ago!

> - Have you felt or been sea sick at all?
Most of us have been fine, I've experienced seasickness in the past but
not in the last 15years or so. It starts with a bit of a headache, then a
bit of tummy ache, then the world starts to take its toll and then the
ultimate happens and you 'express' yourself! Always avoid it below decks,
always over the side, but make sure you're clipped on if the boat is
rolling! Thankfully, none of the crew have been affected!

> - Have you seen any whales or sharks?
This trip, we haven't seen much because the sea has been far more lumpy
than we expected! That said, we've had plenty of dolphins, flying fish
and of course the mahi mahi we caught two days ago. Another yacht not
doing the ARC but traveling with us collided with a whale last week and it
damaged their rudder and they started taking in water, last we heard, they
had vessels standing by in case anything else went wrong! Proves it's a
big risk!

> - Do you ever come close to any other boats (as in to see them clearly)?
For the whole of the first week, we had company of other yachts, you
could see them clearly enough to read their names and of course we were
close enough to radio them too. The middle week we've hardly seen
anyone. But this morning, first time in over a week, we saw sails on the
horizon – James put a call out on the VHF radio and we got 3 replies!!

As we approach St.Lucia, all the yachts are slowly converging on the
finish line, which means all of the different routes we've all taken will
come to a finish and we'll start seeing more and more yachts every day.
It reminds us we're not alone and we are part of an event, which is great!!

So... 628nautical miles to go, we're covering an average of about 160miles
a day...which means we have less than 4 days to run... Late Wednesday,
early Thursday is still the bet!

The sun is shining, the atmosphere onboard today has lifted and we're into
the 'what are going to eat', 'When's the bar open?', 'when are we actually
going to get more than 2-3hours sleep in one go?'... the answers? Lunch –
Taco's and the other two? Thursday!!

Kirsty
SY Gitana