Day 20, Antigua to Portsmouth
Telefonica Black
Lance Shepherd
Sat 2 May 2020 21:52
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49:36.78N
006:03.33W
The final countdown!
200 miles to go.
We currently in a transition zone (so the engine is
on) between the SE we have had all day and the nice SW wind that should
carry us across for the next 120 miles until we are below
Portland bill. It then swings round to the West which should propel us
North. We will then have to motor for a bit, in through the needles and
hopefully we arrive before lunch on Monday morning.
Lance will update you tomorrow night (in his final
skipper blog of the trip) if all that has gone as planned! If the wind does
what's forecast then we should be fine......!
Today we started out still motoring from the wind hole
of the day before, but at around 11 this morning the breeze filled in from the
SE and we were off. Excitement built as we were all desperate to get
sailing again. We have been doing steady speeds all day but Elliott again takes
the record for a sprint of 18 knots in a good gust.
Those steady speeds meant we were closing in on land and
the clues also started to appear. We had a visit from a swallow, there are boats
***on AIS, the radio has started crackling into action and i think before
the night is out we should see a distant lighthouse light.
But before all that happened we got to experience
something that always amazes me, we smelt land. Its a curious feeling and every
shore we have visited after a long passage always smells slightly different
Today it smelt like walking through wet grass in woods or a forest after it
rained. I think its a special thing to experience, you have been in the open
ocean for so long, you get to smell land. Awesome.
Obviously after that the talk turned again to fish and
chips and the merits of a battered sausage!
Personally I am looking forward to a shower and a bottle
of red!
Love to all at home
Claire x
*** been very interesting to see but the majority of
tankers and cargo ships we have seen have been drifting with the tide and their
destination states "waiting for orders". So there is a parking lot of oil and
cargo just waiting in the ocean to be told where to go
next
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