Daily Run 177m
DTT 171nm
Lunch Hot Dogs with homemade Coleslaw
Dinner Homemade Lasagne followed by Banofee Pie
By early evening, with the grated cheese on the Lasagne bubbling away in the oven, the wind decided to join us again. This was a very, very welcome arrival but as fussy as it may seem, not the perfect timing. You see, after nearly 36 hours bobbing around in very little wind, it arrived fairly suddenly, right at the point that when I was putting my Banofee Pie (well Banofee Slop) in the fridge. It lurched to one side and cream poured all over the topshelf and down into the bottom too. Oh blast I declared rather loudly. Now if you are thinking, the cream should have been whipped and thick to prevent spillage (potentially my cousin Alice who is a professional dessert maker is reading x), I know. However, I had to make do with single cream and as hard as Lucy's little electric whisk tried, thicken it would not. For future reference if anyone out there knows how to achieve this - please do let us know!
Spillage cleaned up and we were away again, heading at 5, then 6, then 7 knots towards St Lucia. A flurry of activity amongst the crew as the wind arrived, getting washing off the guard rails, putting away books and cameras that had been left lying around in the light winds. The wind was 12-14 knots from the ENE which was what was forcasted - this is always reassuring. In addition, this wind was now due to stay with us and build all the way to St Lucia meaning a fast finish.
After our failed attempts at fishing, Dietmar persisted and right at the point I was pouring cream allover the fridge with the building wind and now downpour of rain, the fish decided to bite. The Penn Senator (Reel) buzzed away as the line ripped off and into the depths. This one was not getting away. Dietmar fought the fish and abou 15 minutes later we had an excellent Mahi Mahi, about 60cm long aboard. The fish was gutted and cleaned and then put straight into the freezer ready for tomorrow - Lasagne was the order of the day, which by the way the crew loved :-)
The ENE wind continued to build and we had a good steady 20 knots most of the night, occasionally accompanied by a big rain squall much the the amusement of the unlucky on watch caught in it. Of course being cold is no longer an issue. The temperture in the saloon by day is 31 degrees and on deck at night is about 25 degrees, so even in the rain, it is still a pleasant temperature.
I hate to bring up the subject of our position and those of you looking at the tracker will have seen that we have slid back down our fleet which is most annoying. It seems that the Southerly route which looked good and everyone recomended did not pay off as yachts to the North streaked ahead, making as mush as 200nm more than us in a 3 day period. The only hope I have is that they motored through some light winds rather than were just lucky and had more wind. Of course, yachts that motor rarely admit quite how much they motored..........
Today's crew profile is Gerrit:
Gerrit is a Dutchman who is working his whole life in the drinks industry. This role involves him running a subsidary of a well known alcholic beverage company in the Netherlands after different roles abroad. Doing the ARC 2012 and crossing the ocean is a monkey on his shoulder for a long time and finally he was able to find the time to be caught up on a few square meters with 10 other rather strange guys controlled by Deborah from the Hilton suite in the rear site of the boat. It is unlikely that in the Netherlands you are allowed to have 10 people on a yacht, let alone let them sleep in a sauna while shaking them by gigantic waves. He wonders the name of this monstrous machine. In the English language a yacht is always a female, in Dutch it's non descriptive and neither a boy nor a girl. Doing the ARC will give the experience to do more sailing at sea and this all might work out for a different plan in the future. Time will tell. He is enjoying getting involved in boatspeed and has fun in the meantime. Northern Child allows to be together with 4 nationalities including communication issues and cultural differences and perspectives. Explaining the ARC to his boss and responding to his questions, the conclusion of his boss was that this had all the signs of a mid life crisis. His answer was this was to avoid it and it will.
So, we are now firmly on our path towards St Lucia again and as it stands our ETA is still ahead of NC's fastest ever ARC, depsite the slow 72 hours we have just had, which is in itself quite amazing. The spinnaker is going up at first light each morning now and coming down just before dinner when we resume running under poled out genoa, so we are gunning for the boats that overtook us in the light weather again.
As I finish this log, we are just 16nm from covering 2000nm and will have just 700nm to go to St Lucia. This calls for some celebratory chamagne cocktails, some speciality Horsd'erves have been prepared by Adolfo and Richard and Deborah will be cooking the Mahi Mahi for dinner.
I will let you know how are little 2000nm party goes.