a beautiful day
Norman G III
Wed 7 Dec 2011 22:56
at 1900 tonight our position is
14 49 49 N 53 58 86W
and we are motoring along quite happily towards st lucia almost due west. we have 400 nautical miles to go and are estimating arrival in rodney bay st lucia on saturday afternoon, just in time for a nice cold beer and then 24 hours sleep
last night did not turn out to be as bad as we feared.
as i said last night the rain was torrential . i feared that it would last all night but after eating another curry made by our live aboard cook sanjit atkinson who has now turned the colour of branston pickle we bedded down leaving golly and james on watch. they have bonded reallt well ( see later) and at about 0100 i heard a little cheering. appartently in 5 minutes the rain clouds lifted leaving an almost clear sky and a calm sea--- amazing. when i awoke at 3 for my watch the moon was shining beautifully on the water and it was a relaxing shift.
all day we have had sun and have dried all our clothes and jason has dried out all his bedding. so he will sleep a little better tonight. he has changed his sleeping position 180 degrees arguably so that the blood is not flowing towards his head all the time but i think its more that he wants, now his transition is fully made to an indian sub continental chef ,to have his feet facing Mecca. he certainly wakes each morning much calmer but his greeting of inshallah is a little starnge
yesterday when the rain first arrived the skip was in bed. i was steering and for 40 minutes followed the squall wind so we had turned almost fully around but it was not getting any better needed to decide next course of action--- better wake skip. we know hes asleep because of the noises emanating from the cabin so i asked jason to wake him at once. jason said he entered the bedroom to find skip in his underpants fast asleep with a smile on his face snoring happily.. Jason shouted his name two or three times and with no success gently prodded his shoulder to raise him from his slumber. ---skip without opening his eyes said only one word- golly and smiled. oh dear i think that 20 days at sea is taking its toll--- time to reenter the real world
weve eaten well again today.. a chicken and ham pie for lunch and this evening meatballs in ragu sauce with fredh egg pasta ribboons and a dessert of torrone and assorted italian biscuits
we are planning to find a place when we are nearer to the island of st lucia and swim around the boat to try to raise money for charity . this is not so easy because the swell is never less than 2 m and even today without any wind it was too choppy to get into the water. the current is quite strong so if it takes 10 minutes to swim around the boat and you get tired the boat can move 300yards before we could start the engine--- not a nice prospect especially as we know from the fishing that big fish follow the boat.. pleaser think about pledging some money to make us do the swim-- more tomorrow
tonight a big hello to all at dolphin sails and passmores who made stuff for the boat. its all been really exceptional quality but the dolphin spray hood saved our lives last night-- almost 10 hours of torrential rain and not a drop entered through into our refuge in the cockpit-- remarkable
sleep tight
MG
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