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28:07.750N
15:25.550W
Well, Saturday has
finaally come and the last lot of provisions delivered - Fruit and veg. The
guy who put the order together must know that the biggest peril at sea is
the ability to see in the dark - why else would he replace all of our tomato
order with carrots? After a bit of debate David managed to get them to agree to
tale 13kg kilos of carrots back, and send us the tomatoes, whilst, in the
meantime, the rest of the crew were carefully wshing, drying and sorting the
fresh produce. One bad apple etc - can't be too careful!!
Lucky everyone is
busy - butterflies are setting in as we get on to the last 24 hours. Sally has
gone back to UK now, and Tony and Lizzy feel a big gap - next stop St
Lucia!
Michelle you old
softy - thank you so much for the card. Must share the quote with everyone that
is quite apt for all of us - "Sometimes it is better to be a human being rather
than human doing".
After a two hour plus
briefing from David and Tony it was time to meet the Russians. Needless to say
it was a great evening with Chris on good form. The two skippers (David now
aquired the title of 'gaffer' - clealy picking up on the fact that he is the
skipper but more to do with the fact that he uses a reel of Gaffer tape every
day to pack things up!!!) toasted success to the two boats (Great Escape and
Kotari) and the evening flowed from there.
No time to
upload blog yesterday so its now Sunday - just a little apprehensive!
The plan is to leave about 11:00am and as we go through the 'gate' (the
entrance to the harbour) we need to be on deck in our GE shirts. At this stage
the marshalls achnowledge a wave from the 'gaffer' that all is well and we are
essentially off - just the 2800 miles to go - as little motoring as possible as
we get time penalty points if we do. The atmosphere of the past few days and
especially this morning is electric. No matter what is said and how small the
world is these days, even those that have done this many times, have now put
joking aside and are really focused. In terms of GE, the crew is working well
and I'm confident that the gaffer and Tony are fully on top of their game. To
all those reading this at home, the gaffer, Tony and the crew are fit and
well and it now just remains for us to lash the sails and spare diesel
and wish Kotari and all the other boats in the 2006 ARC a safe and enjoyable
passage - see you in Rodney Bay. Hi from all on GE with a special hi from Pascal
to Celia and Lucy. Hi to Rebecca and Louise.
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