After a rolling night, day thirteen continued our watch routine with lighter winds than we hoped for, combined with a stealthy swell from behind.  This made helming today a bit frustrating when it threw you into a roll, knowing it would discomfort/ waken the off watch. 

 

The main excitement of the day came from the Outside World, with the long awaited confirmation that both Al and Paul have become Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers and are a formality away from being Chartered Engineers.  I think there is going to be a lot of secret handshake practice from now on.  The event was suitably marked with a bottle of bubbly from Starcross' cellar making a short but welcome appearance with dinner.

 

We have returned to a more normal sail combination and are now reaching towards St Lucia.  With one eye on the distance to go, we are looking forward to the good winds forecast for the next few days.  Hopefully we will continue to climb some more places as our strategy to go for the trade winds appears to have finally borne fruit!

 

Cheers,

 

Ross*, Al* CEng MICE, Al*, Paul* CEng MICE, Will*

 

* with four engineers and an engineer-turned-architect on board, the full list of qualifications would look like alphabet soup, albeit with a similar selection of letters repeated many times. It has been simplified to give the boys their day of glory.