The refuelling
was successful, but the fridge decided to give up the ghost, hopefully
temporarily, and as for the weather, words fail.
In the event,
the refuelling went well. Each of us was allocated a role to play; Louisa minded
the helm and Cleone, Francesca looked after the tools and stores needed, Kaya
hefted the cans and removed the tops, and the Skipper, crouched on the lee-rail
but secured by his life-line, removed the filler-cap and carefully syphoned the
precious fuel from the 22 litre cans and into the tank. A cupful might have been
spilt, but it was quickly mopped up, it was raining but the filler cap was in
the lea of Cleone's Cuddy and little, if any, got into the tank and nobody
dropped either the can-tops or the filler cap into the sea. The crew and the
Skipper ate lunch feeling rather pleased with themselves, particularly after
dipping the fuel tank showed that the tank once more contained about 200 litres
of diesel and was almost full. After this success, it was therefore no surprise
when Kaya announced that the fridge was no longer working. Emergency plans were
quickly made for the food stored therein, and just as quickly they were
implemented. Luckily most of our fresh and perishable food has been eaten, and
little has had to be thrown away. We have enough cartons of long-life milk for
us to be able to open a fresh one each day until we arrive (fingers crossed, -
Ed). Unfortunately the Planners, in their innocence, completely missed the main
point. FROM NOW ON AND UNTIL AFTER WE ARRIVE IN RODNEY BAY MARINA, ST LUCIA, WE
HAVE NO COLD BEER. The skipper has retired to his bunk in high dudgeon. That is
not to say that, following this unfortunate discovery, unlike the rest of the
crew, the skipper immediately grasped the real significance of this failure and
set to work with a multi-meter to try and work out the cause of the failure. So
far all of this has been in vain, so the fridge joins what is now quite a long
list of repairs to be made post our arrival.
We now have
downloaded two weather forecasts as well as the grib files that we refresh
daily. All three have promised us north or south south-easterly winds, and none
of them have been accurate. We have had 3 or 4 bursts of rain of biblical
proportions, one of which, although not quite at full strength, lasted for a
whole watch. With these deluges have come massive wind-shifts and gusts up to 25
knots. But throughout, the ruling direction of the wind has been from the
south-west or south south-west. Luckily this has meant that we can sail our
course by fetching on the port tack. This is one of Cleone's fastest points of
sail, so we have made good progress. However, the watches have been busy trying
out every combination of reefs in both the mainsail and the mizzen together with
different sizes of the roller-furling genoa.
We are
approaching the point where we can celebrate - less than 500 miles to go,
hopefully sometime later on today. At this point, another on-board sweepstake
will be open. We will let you know the result as soon as we
can.
Meanwhile, all
is well on board, and we hope to get most of our soaking kit dried before we get
to St Lucia.
With very best
wishes and love to you all,
James,
Francesca, Louisa and Kaya
Yacht
Cleone
At
sea
Position at
1200UTC on11 Dec 2024:
N17deg10min
W051deg59min