BRITISH SOLDIER ARC BLOG - DAY 4 (WED 24 NOV)
Britishsoldier
Wed 24 Nov 2010 13:20
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BRITISH SOLDIER ARC BLOG - DAY 4 (WED
24 NOV)
At the time of writing we've sailed a total of
562 miles through the water, although we've only made 400 miles towards St
Lucia. It's funny how everyone has loads of news to email home when on
watch, but can't think of anything amusing to report for the blog -
suddenly anything is more interesting. So, having cleaned the heads (boat's
toilet), galley, and scrubbed the deck, Starboard Watch have no option but
to put pen to paper...
The excellent wind conditions we were enjoying
yesterday afternoon have disappeared overnight leaving us almost becalmed.
The Port Watch spent a frustrating night chasing the breeze before changing
the S4 spinnaker (heavy-duty downwind sail) for a much lighter S2 spinnaker
at 05.30 hours in an effort to maintain speed. However, the GPS is now
predicting our time of arrival at St Lucia to be sometime in January
- I don't remember seeing Christmas turkey on the provision
list?! It's becoming a race to eat the fresh food before it goes mouldy (not
helped by the temperature ramping up with each mile sailed). Thankfully, we
still had enough sausages in a passable condition for bangers and mash last
night.
The Starboard Watch felt a bit
despondent when we stared our shift at 06.00 because of the lack
of wind and Port Watch getting all the fun of changing the spinnaker
at night. Our spirits were soon lifted at first light when we noticed
Dom had put his clothes on back-to-front; Port Watch hadn't eaten all the Orio
biscuits and a large pod of dolphins were playing in our bow wave. We
took turns to stand at the bow to get a closer look (despite looking
like Kate Winslett on Titanic).
In an effort to improve the monotony of night
watches, Starboard Watch have introduced a strict regime of PT - press-ups
and sit-ups every hour. I won't say how many just yet but we hope it will
have increased before St Lucia and that we'll have physiques to match our
suntans. In contrast, Port Watch are trying to improve
their vocabularies with epic games of Scrabble. It remains to be seen
which strategy will work best on the beaches of St Lucia!
Having faced the ordeal of writing the daily Blog I
must now man-up and face the worse terror of shaving and showering in cold sea
water.
Graham
MOD civvy
You can follow British Soldier's progress across
the Atlantic by viewing
the race tracker at the following link: http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/viewer.aspx. |