Land Ahoy (or is it Ho ?) finally spotted at just under 20nm at 5pm (8pm UCT )

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Wed 7 Jan 2015 20:29
13:03.12N 59:12.27W

We've kept thinking we had spotted land for past couple of hours but there has been a frustrating bank of cloud in that direction but we now certain we have. We' ve had a lovely afternoons sail real trade wind kind ( or how we had imagined) even smooth seas and now we've put the engine on as the wind has died for the last 20 or so nm. We've even got a mobile phone signal!

As I write this addendum at midday our time there are 55 miles to go to a waypoint on the south side of the island so it's a little further to Bridgetown. David has just tried the engine and that started and is working so that's good and a relief. So we just sit and wait as the boat continues to sail the ocean blue ( it really is that glorious deep blue colour today) under the poled out Genoa which has been out there on its own for the past 5-6 days at least. It's getting warmer too and the water temperature is 32.1.

Actually the men can't sit and wait they have just put up the smaller cruising Shute in addition to the poled out Genoa to see if we can go faster! Interesting how different we all are - yes I am looking forward to getting there and I can understand getting in earlier rather than later will be good for all of us but another afternoon at sea sitting in the sun (actually shade as very hot - reading and listening to music is bliss as far as I am concerned. Hopefully there will be more. They need to do something.

After we sent the blog earlier today we all suddenly thought this is all a bit of an anti climax and we don't really know what to expect and I suppose a certain anxiety too.

This is partly because we don't have the detailed paper chart of Barbados ( we have the paper passage planning chart for the Caribbean, Alex has the detailed charts on her I pad which went with her back to the UK and now in the BVI) and David has all the islands detailed except Barbados on his computer - the reason for that is originally we were going to make first landfall Grenada before we had the delay with the generator and deciding that Alex and children wouldn't do this section of the journey. As explained in a previous blog we don't have the detailed plotter chart for Barbados either.

Alex has managed to get hold of the card we need for the plotter which will give us all the detail of the islands but she doesn't arrive until tomorrow. So we have done as much research as we can via Alex and friends at home and checked out the various pilot guides so here's hoping and we shall take it slowly.

We think that after being at sea for this length of time ( disappointing that the predicted currents haven't speeded us along the way and made the journey quicker but then that was our experience down the coast off Spain and Portugal and at least we have had wind most of the time unlike that section of the trip) it's the sudden realisation one is about to hit civilisation again - people, noise and a new country. Exciting and we are very fortunate that we have several months of the adventure ahead of us and Alex and the children will soon be with us.