Sun- Wed 11-14/12/11 – The End of the Beginning! – 14:04.3N 60:57.1W

Please accept our apologies for not completing an entry on Sunday, which is – once again - unforgiveable. We have no excuse, except over-excitement or mind-numbness, perhaps. We had a mixed 36 hour's sailing, with Saturday night being light to the point that Bob (Alan) had no steerage way on his watch. It got better, but was still a painfully slow night and we made little headway. We were wary about using up the last of our diesel motoring, and thus had to live with it as the old seamen were forced to (but with the advantage of a fridge and freezer).

When daylight broke, the wind picked up to about 8-12 knots, and we nursed the Parasailor to give us a bit of boat speed, which increased a bit as the day wore on. It ripened even more later on, and we began to feel optimistic about bridging the last 100 miles before Monday morning.....

...and we almost made it! The wind faded as we approached St Lucia late evening, and we crawled round the top of the island to ghost over the finishing line at 0040 local time. It took an absolute age to get the whole boat over the line as we had < 4knots of wind and it was on the nose! At the same time, we had a photographer buzzing round the boat trying to take pictures of a jubilant crew - he must have struggled since he spent 20 minutes and gigabytes of memory before going off with a grump! It then started to rain, believe it or not, but it was hot rain!

Welcomed by a couple of brave people with a glass of rum punch, a basket of fruit, and a can of beer, we quickly put the boat to bed, and followed it quickly.... 21 days at sea, after the false start, constant motion and noise, and then you cannot sleep because it is too quiet! Still, we can get used to that...

We will be back with a few bon mots, more pictures and some philosophy (or something) but in the meantime,

Take Care All

(and think about the boats till out there!)

Watergaw