We made it to the start line! Jobs list finished. Phew! Well, almost finished. Just when I thought I had managed to get all the sat comms working, suddenly everything stopped working the day before departure. Argh! Not only that, but I’d blown my monthly sat comms budget in 24hrs. Arkwright the racing pigeon would have delivered messages more reliably than my system and cost me a lot less too! Like all challenges on this journey so far, we fixed it and we were then ready to go.
Who would have guessed we’d have champagne sailing as far as Finisterre?! Downwind all the way and plenty of sunshine. Clear nights with a full moon. Plenty of dolphins and three sightings of whales in Biscay. Fabulous! Until we reached Finisterre and the rains and headwinds arrived. Andy constructed a “rainy” playlist which nearly persuaded the team to do man-overboard practice when Giles started Dad-dancing at the helm. Jane was keen to refer Mark and Giles to a urologist but was assured they just needed new oilskins. Like many of the other yachts around us, light and fickle headwinds, the dying light and the proximity of the finish line, just a few miles further on eventually persuaded us to drop the sails and motor to the finish line. What a superb passage.
Bragging rights on this leg:
Andy for his fix to the gennaker halyard (sleeved with some of the cover from an old mainsheet)
Jane for almost nailing it with her estimated arrival time (OK, you won that one!)
Diana for our daily muesli and brownie diet (yummy!)
Mark for the sundowners (and being able to find anything in the galley)
Giles for hotting her up and getting away with it (“sail her like an SB3”!)
And in her absence: Cindy for the Yeti mugs which make a cup of tea last a whole shift. Looking forward to seeing if they can keep a large dark & stormy cold in the heat of the Caribbean.
Giles