Another 24 hours have elapsed as wedge our way closer to St Lucia our Caribbean destination, the instruments show 1,780 miles left to go which means that we have already covered 1,120. I calculate that early Wednesday we should reach our half way point which will be a massive landmark. We purchased two bottles of Tattinger at Gatwick specifically to celebrate our half way mark, oh the joys of a wet boat. I remember the sundowner drinks in Las Palmas when we would mingle with the other crews and they would sound very self-righteous when they talked about their “dry boat”, we just kept quiet about our 96 cans of beer and 36 litres of wine not to mention the G&T’s!!

The last 24 hours have been our fastest yet. We had a sail change yesterday morning as the wind shifted round to be slightly off the beam so we switched out the down wind sail for the massive lightweight code zero gennaker. The sail powered us forward at an astonishing rate and as if that was not enough as the wind shifted further round we added the mainsail and managed at one time 10.4 knots. This gave us over the 24 hour period 166 miles covered providing an ETA given consistent trade winds of circa 8^th December.

We have passed the 30 degrees west longitude and therefore watches slip back another hour we are therefore GMT -2 which makes lunch time beers confusing as they do seem extraordinarily early at 10am! We are keeping all watch times on GMT as it seems confusing enough aready without adding the complication of local time.

Last night we were treated to beef bourguignon a la Colin and we have tended to choose to eat earlier as it’s preferable to see what you are eating rather than wait till it’s dark, food and drink are both important for morale and bonding as the days tend to merge together as watch follows watch but all the crew remain in good spirits.

Toady is shower day as it’s three days since the last one so long overdue, the ritual consists of a wet down with the shower quickly switched off, then a lather up before a quick wash off. I reckon I have got this down to a fine art of about three litres of water which is a far cry from life at home when a shower can go on for ten minutes.

The only other point of note over the last 24 hours is the night visitor which was a flying fisg down in the main cabin, how on earth he got there I have no idea, my best guess is that whilst flying he must have hit the open hatch to be deflected below. Anyway he’s on the bait list for today in the hope that he improves our fishing count which remains a little disappointing as I had expected more bite but we persevere.

That’s all for today so signing off

Paul/Skip

Visitor of the Night