Hoorah.... We were off at last, at 1100 on Tuesday and of we went with the rest of the fleet... St. Lucia bound.
A windy start with 20 knots of wind and a big swell running, heading westerly to get out from the island and then south keeping far enough offshore to try and avoid the wind acceleration zone south of the airport.... well we tried but the wind was accelerating everywhere....
Elle was seasick for the first few hours, as she expected to be, but all good now with no one else suffering in this rocking and rolling. We are all now getting used to the watch system of 4 hours on and 6 hours off in a dual watch system, so there are always two people on watch.
Before dark we set the Genoa with pole to starboard and the main out to port on a preventer and then ran just of the wind till daybreak, changing the course to suit the wind instead of the sails to suit the wind angle. At daybreak we changed course to a more southerly direction to get us back on our preferred course.
Over the first 24 hours we did 185 miles, didn't quite menage the 200 but pleasing none the less
The immediate forecast is for the wind to stay around twenty knots with some wet squalls and increased winds from the north east
back to surfing now.....
Mike....over