14:53.35N  49:03.48W

 

Much to report.  After being the most northerly yacht only a few days ago, we are now just about the most southerly, but sailing deep angles is paying dividends and we were the quickest yacht towards our destination (VMG) in the last 24 hours, after being the 2nd quickest the day before. We have now caught up with the other contenders and are planning our next move to get past them. It still isn’t a race though. We understand we are now 7th in the fleet of 51 with the slowest now 433 miles behind and the fastest 77 ahead.

 

Last night a grave discovery was made on board. Three weevils; two dead and one alive. Needless to say our stores had to be cleared out of the cupboards and inspected before cleaning the cupboards and repacking. We have been careful when buying fresh food in particular not to allow insects or eggs on board by cleaning most food stuffs and discarding cardboard before coming on board. Cardboard is a favourite place for cockroaches to lay their eggs. The weevils seem to have come from some fresh pasta that had been opened previously and not securely re-sealed. All sorted now though.

 

When we bought our frozen meat in Las Palmas we pre-ordered it with a local butcher who delivered it to the boat. The five steaks were a treat for our half way celebration and delicious quality meat it was too. That fact that it was so good is an extra bonus to the fact that when we thawed it out we found he had packed ten instead of five.  Not needing too much of an excuse we have decided to add an additional landmark to our Atlantic crossing. This evening marks two thirds of the way there, ‘just’ 700 miles to go. So, steak again and we feel it would be a shame not to have just one more wine ration given the quality of the meat.

 

The ships clock has been turned back another hour at lunch time today, so we are now 3 hours behind the UK. A bit of a debate is now ensuing about whether we need to lose another one or two by the time we get to St Lucia as we have some contradictory information on board. The contradictory evidence is that the rally handbook clearly states that St Lucia is GMT-4, and skipper is sure he heard somewhere it was GMT–5. We will go with GMT-4 for now which means losing another hour in the next day or two and then when skipper is proven right we can do the last one on arrival.