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