arc update 24th Nov

Pelican
Darryl and Anne Saxton
Tue 24 Nov 2009 12:27
24 19 N  17 37W
 
So here we are in the Atlantic on the ARC rally.
 
We set off as planned on Sunday at 1300hrs. The wind was very light for the start so we had a bit of a struggle to get going. At 27 tonnes we are one of the heaviest boats in the fleet, and probably the most heavy in the cruising section.
 
We crawled along and watched the other boats moving off away from us. then the wind picked up a bit and we got going. We have managed an average of 6 knots so far which is all we could have hoped for.
 
It is now Tuesday and we havn'tseen anothwer ARC boat since Sunday night. I think we are quite a way east of the fleet but hopefuly we will get better wind here.
 
It is another hot sunny day, crew morale seems pretty good except we don't like to spend too much time below in the galley. It is hot down there and we are still finding our proper sea legs so still get a bit queasy if we spend too long at the stove. Had a really nice lasagne o sunday and spicey sauages last night ( they were supposed to be with veg and gravey but ended up in sandwiches as we have lovely fresh bread to use up.
 
We have started the towed generator this morning and have already seen some improvement to the state of charge of the batteries. If that keeps up we wil not have to use engine power for charge.
 
have seen lots of dolphins each day, and quite a crowd of them came to play this morning.
 
St Lucia seems a long way away at present but we are thinking up some little mini reasons to celebrate as we go along. The next one will probably Thursday when we hope to turn onto our trade wind crossing course - we are still traying to get as far south as possible to guarantee good trade winds.