TUESDAY DECEMBER 9

 

Position at 2100 GMT: 14 deg 19.51 north, 58 deg 06.81 west

 

Currently 55 miles north west of Barbados, 166 miles to St Lucia

 

Here’s an odd position to be in: having spent the last 21 days setting sails, changing them, trimming them, re-setting them to coax every last bit of speed out of Relentless we now find ourselves deliberately making her slow down a bit!

 

This is why: we’re just 166 miles from the northern-most tip of St Lucia (the gap between the island and Martinique) and we want to arrive there at about 0200 our time on Thursday. If we get there too soon we’ll have to hang around in the dark because we don’t want to go into the harbour at Rodney Bay until it’s daylight, as it’s a tricky entrance with lots of yachts moored there.

 

Today has been stinking hot again, so we’ve all had showers (Dave had his on deck from a bucket) and because we’ve gone so far west now it’s still hot in the sun at 1800. Sunset won’t be for about another 45 minutes, then it will cool down a little (but only a little). Tomorrow we cross the 60 West longitude line and our clocks go back another hour, putting us four hours behind the UK.

 

Crew dinner on deck tonight will be corned beef hash with beans, followed by a tin of fruit with custard. All good wind-producing material.