TOMORROW FINALLY CAME - N 15 23.91 W 43 35.37

OOJAH's AWESOME ODYSSEY
Peter & Christene Tanner
Sat 8 Dec 2012 14:11
After a morning of showers & much debate about strategy we abandoned our efforts to get South round the wind hole & freed off for St Lucia, setting the small spinakker at lunchtime & making 8 kts towards our destination. With bacon & egg rolls for brunch & conditions almost fit for washing morale rose. Mid afternoon we were overtaking another yacht for the first time since the main broke. He called us on radio & asked if we had a scapel & local anaesthetic as they had a crew member with a fishing hook embedded deep into his arm. We stood by, only able to offer a new stanley knife blade & comfort, but were later to contact our Dutch friends Pieter & Sabine on Ostrea who have a doctor on board. As I write both yachts have met up 20 nm behind us. Crossing as a group in order to be able to help each other if necessary is the reason the ARC came into being 27 years ago & is probably thhe fundamental reason why its so popular today.
 
At about the same time we ran into the wind hole we'd been trying to avoid for several days & after a brief swim we are motored towards St Lucia for 3 hours. The sun shone for the rest of the day & we enjoyed the duck we'd been so looking forward to. Just after sundown a little wind came in from the NW & the big spinakker has been up ever since - absolutely magic sailing right through the night & this morning...so tomorrow finally came!
 
PS Barney - are we doing any better on our rivals? Thks for the info on other yachts