St Lucia at last
Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Mon 13 Mar 2006 12:56
March, ?12th, Monday 2006
St Lucia.
We finally arrived here
yesterday, after what felt like rather a lot of sailing, motoring, and crashing
about the place. The first leg (a mere 80 mile passage) from Trinidad
to Grenda was just sailable, despite wind and current being against us. We
left at lunch and crashed on through the night, passing Grenda at dawn. We
expect funny gusts and weird seas at either end of these islands where the
Atlantic pounds in, and were not disappointed. Coming up the island chain
is a Jeckle and Hyde experience. It alternates from upto 30 knot
headwinds, with a massive Atlantic swell in between the islands, throwing spray
and waves all over the boat in a wild ride, during which all hatches are bolted,
and you hang on for dear life, to Kensington pond smoothness with winds under 10
knots, whilst in the lee of the islands. You then open all the
hatches, shake yourself like a wet dog, and say,'Phew!'. There is usually
time for a meal and a bit of re-stowing of liberated stuff, before taking
a deep breath and swinging around the end of another island into the whistling
wind and sea again. We repeated this at least seven times up to St Lucia, over
220 miles.
Hilariously, the girls
pronounced themselves freezing when we arrived. This is because the
temperature has dropped from 38'C in the shade to 29'C. The sea also feels
chilly, as it is now only 25'C, as oppose to 28'C. We have moved from 10N
to 13N. They insisted on eating in the saloon because it was too cold
outside.....We are planning to return to England next month and will obviously
be ill-prepared for this return to the north pole at 52N.
otti says :ha ha
we're HERE !!!! on the passage we stopped off at Union
for a pit stop and a break from the wavy,
crashy, sea . Looking forward to seeing Fred
. Last night just after we'd eaten mum and dad crashed
out, mum managing to get to the bed , dad just crashing
out on the sofa! All of the plates were left on the
table including the left overs. So
me and mimi stayed up for hours playing and stuff
!! otti ( - :
(smile)
Mimi says: 'I can't
wait for Fred to get over, and I am not very happy about the going home to the
North Pole as Mum says. Every morning I have shake for breakfast. Still a
little tired from the three day sail. Greetings to everybody. from
Mimi.'
(Mum says: We are on super
healthy banana, papaya, apple, yoghurt, linseed and soya shake
breakfasts)