Tropical Storms, Tropical Calms and who ate all the sausages

Cruinneag
Tue 6 Dec 2011 19:46
Tuesday 6th December 2011 13:40:50N 51:40:90W

So an eventful weekend for the intrepid adventurers aboard the Cruinneag 3 as we as we continue to battle the winds and waves as we head closer and closer to our final destination to St. lucia. all hope of calm seas and t shirt and shorts weather were dashed as the crew had to don oilskins in order to brave the elements with onset of some stormy tropical weather, well that is everyone bar Trevor who decided oilskins are for pansy southerners, and that he gets worse weather then this in his back garden in scotland! so to add to our torment we have had to witness Trev running around the decks wearing nothing more then a pair of shorts and his life jacket for the past three days, which while generally bearable, becomes  is a little disconcerting when he wakes the 3am watch team with animal impressions from the saloon.

The worst of our troubles came to head on Saturday night just after the skipper served up round of mudslides as part of the regular happy hour, when he proudly announced that he had used the last of the Baileys, mutiny almost ensued, but the skipper was lucky as bad weather and high winds meant the crew had to jump to action stations, and were distracted for long enough for Karens chicken curry to come to rescue and settle the crews nerves, as we moved from cocktails to red wine.

The next evening Steve also worked hard in an attempt to demonstrate that other beverages were available to the crew as he came up with his pink gin concoction at his Chichester's bar! Again the the crew was satiated as Trev and Nick prepared a hearty spanish ham egg and potato fry up which again left the crew content with full bellies.

It wasn't until Sunday however that the crew realised the true desperation of our situation, not only had the winds dropped and a tropical muggy heat ensued, we realised that stocks and rations were much lower then expected, on inspection of the freezers it became clear that we had exhausted our supply of venison sausages, and that we would have to survive our last week at sea eating only chicken, pork or lamb, at great disappointment to the crew...to make matters worse as I had to prepare cocktails for the only 1000 miles to go celebration i realised we were down to our last bottle of rum !!!   This really cased a panic amongst my shipmates, and we agreed that if we couldn't make the rum last the voyage then we would have to make an emergency detour to barbados, where we can restock at one of the many excellent rum refineries! 
  
Through Sunday and Monday the weather has calmed, we are still getting short bursts of rain, mostly in the morning and evening, but none lasting more the 20 minutes or so. some of the crew (yes I meanTrevor) have used the cloud bursts as an opportunity to bath al fresco  and other  are using to freshen up their sightly over worn clothes, as for me well i prefer the more traditional showering method, and Nick has very kindly turned on the washing machine so my clothes are doing well at 40 degrees

The wind has dropped quite a bit over the past day or so, and at the moment we are relying on the good old gardener engine to keep us going on our way, we are still on track to arrive at St Lucia sometime next weekend, but we are banking on the winds picking up to get us there sooner rather then later. 

Last night Karen threw us all a Boney M Christmas party to make up for us all missing our office do's this year and today we are eagerly preparing for our 500 miles to go Burns night feast...more on this in the next installment but the Haggis is defrosting and will be dressed and paraded and Nick may even don his kilt!!

Todays Blog was brought to you by Mr Raman Gandotra.

As always may I take this opportunity to say a big hello to everyone back home - contrary to the tone of these blogs we are all still relatively sane although the excitement today around laundry day - 6 loads through the machine, is a little concerning.

We will get one more blog out before arrival and some more photos all going well but in the mean time sit back, relax and enjoy the cold...it's hot hot hot here!