14:45.9N 58:05.9W A Special Blog for Class 5S Wessex Primary School

Oboe D'Amore's Web Diary
Nigel Backwith
Fri 12 Dec 2008 22:32

On probably our penultimate day at sea, time is passing very slowly.  We have started watching the miles clock down and of course this is a pretty slow process.  The sun is beating down, the beautiful blue seas roll under us and swoosh melodically and Oboe rides along proudly.  If she could smile, she would have a grin from port to s’bord beam!  The winds have dropped a little, adding to the chilled out atmosphere in the cockpit.  No one says much.  Conversation seems unnecessary among a group of such close friends.  Everyone is lost in their own little world; some listening to music, others reading the last few pages of the book that has been neglected much of the trip.  Despite the idyllic lifestyle into which we have all fallen like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, life snapped back to reality in the afternoon as the skipper gave the order for the big clean up to begin.  We gave Oboe a spring clean from top to toe.  The decks were scrubbed on hands and knees.  No cupboard was left unpolished, the cockpit was soaped from end to end, the metal work gleamed in the sunshine and the galley and heads made spotless.  

 

During the afternoon a large pod of dolphins came to play around the boat much to the delight of everyone except Iona who had gone to sleep at the wrong moment.  Now it is back to mellow mood and the music is playing and Nigel has swapped his skipper’s cap for a red apron and is madly stirring wild mushroom risotto for supper.

 

We have learned that some of our young fans and blog readers can be found in Miss Smith’s class in Wessex Primary School.  They have loads of questions for us, which we are pleased to try to answer, despite them being a bit too difficult for grownups.  Anyway, here goes:

 

1.       The water is so blue because it eliminates all the other colours of the rainbow and reflects the blue sky above

 

2.       Fish are very clever and sometimes are too strong for the line we have.  We have got better though over the trip and Miss Smith will show you a photo of one we caught next term

 

3.       When you are at sea it is difficult to know what day it is so we accidently had pizza on Thursday

 

4.       We saw the whales on a very calm day. We could see their flat grey backs and their ‘blows’ as they exhaled air. We think they were a family of about four whales but we could not identify them as they were quite a little way away

 

5.       The tomatoes lasted so long because those we couldn’t eat we cooked down into a very good mush – just right for pizza topping. They are all gone now

 

6.       We still have 2 or 3 packets of Pringles left to eat with our celebratory drink as we sail across the finish line tomorrow

 

And finally, tell your parents you want to learn to sail ...

 

To all our readers, we may or may not be in any fit state to scribe a blog tomorrow, as we arrive on St Lucia’s national holiday, a day of non-stop partying.  Reunited with our loved ones, we will scrub off layers of salt, wear shoes and definitely languish in a relaxing bath before sleeping in a proper bed (yippee!).  Then, after Oboe receives a couple of days TLC we are off to Antigua, via Martinique, Domenica and Guadaloupe for a very untraditional Christmas in the sun.  Surely not jerk turkey I hear you cry ...

 

Nigel