PI Squared - ARC Log - Day 18
Mustique
Fin McGurran
Wed 12 Dec 2007 22:55
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Day 18 - Out But Not Down
Well, as you all know we are no longer in the race
- a bit dissapointing at first but the sun has been shining, the music has been
playing, we are due to arrive on Friday and all is well again. Even better,
we no longer need to worry about those white flappy things and all those
different ropes! Fin is also a bit more relaxed and no longer shouting "Ouch"
when someone backs the main jolts the rig!
It has been a long 18 days and the blog
has become increasingly difficult to maintain, as you may have
noticed. At first we were full of excitement and everything was new, now we
are thinking, oh my god, what the hell are we still doing out here!
Sightings of flying fish, dolphins and shooting stars used to be met with
cries of look, look and yells of delight - now the only thing that gets us
excited is the prospect of partying on dry land again! After 20 days at sea we
are all wondering how our sea legs will be ... I'm sure the cocktails will
balance out any rocking motion we experience. Even although we are not in the
racing class we are still part of the open class of racing, made up of all the
boats that have had various issues that required them to use their engines. So,
we will be maintaining the blog, although, we are running out of new experiences
to share with you - there are only so many wity anecdotes one can write about
flying fish.
Our sister yacht EH01 completed the ARC last year
in 12 days, they will complete tomorrow, 19 days in total - 7 days longer than
last year, we will arrive 24 hours later. It has been recognised as a
particularly tough year in terms of weather. The weather has crept up and
spanked us on several occassions. Reports on Tuesday indicated that a revolving
tropical storm (named Olga) was going to pop past and say hello - luckily we
won't be in the area although we did catch the back end of it with some bad
weather over the past two days. We have all had enough of heavy seas and
squalls!
Today we have been mostly eating the freeze dried
delights with some popcorn thrown in for a treat ... it tasted so good! In a
world full of 24/7 conveniences where you can have whatever you want pretty much
whenever you want it, it is quite a shock to the system being on a boat where
you can only what had been stowed and there isn't much of that left either!
Aside from our alcohol detox (will be 3 weeks by the time we arrive!!) we are
craving other basics like milk in our tea, not having to hold on whilst on
the toilet, water on tap, showers, being able to walk away from someone who has
just pissed you off, things we all take for granted! What we don't miss at all
are mobile phones, can't tell you how wonderful it is to no longer be subjected
to half a conversation, no chance of hearing "hello, it's me, I'm on a boat, in
the Atlantic" ... we have also learnt a lot about living in close quarters with
a bunch of people we didn't know 3 weeks ago, even the boys are becoming adept
at putting their socks away!
After 18 days of 3 and 4 hour watch patterns where
2 hours of unbroken sleep is a luxury not often afforded the crew, today has
been strange. We are now 4 watches, two crew in each - one driver, one mate.
With no sails to worry about we just need to point the boat in the right
direction and surf the waves! The new system means 2 hours of driving then 6
hours off - we are at a loss as to what we can do to fill the 6 hours, we are
only capable of 2 hours sleep at a time and there is nothing to nibble on or
drink ... in saying that we have all become quite adept at doing nothing at all
and are happy in our natural habitat, lazing around sunbathing on the deck.
Games of who am I and eye spy are becoming tedious now that we have been round
the whole boat and "I spy with my little eye something begining with W" is just
not funny anymore.
We are all in good spirits, really enjoying the
last leg of our trip and so looking forward to arriving in St Lucia
...
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