Just under 1500 miles to go

Cat-man-do
Tue 4 Dec 2007 01:59
Well, as the title says, just under 1500 miles to go to St Lucia. There's not a great deal of wind at the moment so we're only managing about 5 knots (that's about 6 ish miles an hour) doing the maths on that one isn't too exciting. However the weather will hopefully be a bit kinder in wind terms tomorrow and the next few days so with a bit of luck (and a following wind) we'll hopefully get some bigger mileages done then.
We're looking forward to the next couple of days as it should bring us to the half way point on the trip and so we're going to have a party. Not the sort of party where you have lots to drink, dance like an idiot and tell total strangers you reeeally do love them. No, we're going to do it in style. We've saved the last packet of Wine Gums and some Mars ice cream especially for the occasion !! There may be an odd beer or Scotch thrown in for good measure though.
We had a bit of a surprise this morning when our satellite phone rang, it's such a rare sound that I think we all started looking around for where the noise was coming from! However when we'd finally figured it out, it was Tim from Rebel T, who had decided to ring and see how we were getting on. It's was nice that we could give instantaneous position fixes so we could work out exactly how we were comparing. It would appear that we're about 60 miles ahead of them at the moment, which in the grand scheme of things isn't a lot, but it's nice to know.
We've had a few goes at fishing whilst we've been out on this trip and caught, well nothing actually. After reports of big catches on other boats in the fleet we had high hopes but it wasn't to be (there was of course the HUGE one that got away though) It would appear however that the fish were feeling sorry for us and whilst on watch the other night, one decided to jump into Peters'  lap. Now before you all sit there smiling and thinking we've been out at sea a little TOO long, it's true !
To be honest we've been in the company of flying fish for a few days now, and they're incredible little things. I'd heard of them before we came out, and figured they just jumped out of the water a bit and splashed back in a few feet away. In truth they come out of the water and look for all the world like a small Swallow. They fly for ages a few feet above the water before diving back in again in some cases it looks like a hundred yards or so later (though it's a little difficult to judge distance out here) These amazing little creatures also seem to have a liking for boats, especially at night where we've had several deciding to jump into the boat itself, including the one that hit Peter the other night. It was apparently quite a surprising experience !!
That's about it for now, I would however like to thank those that have made nice comments about the blog. It's sometimes quite difficult to think of things to write as a lot of the days are quite similar.
Hopefully some of the other crew members are going to pass on some of their thoughts in the next few days to give my brain a rest from writing "Fishy tales"
Don't be too surprised if there's a day missing in the next few days though.
We'll all be in bed nursing hangovers from the Half Way Wine Gum Party.
Be good at home (especially Gabrielle and Nicole)
Brian x