Normal service has resumed! The sunrise was earlier today on account of the fact that we changed the clocks back an hour, and yesterday's black clouds, high winds, big waves and near constant rain have left, and warm sunny blue skies have been the order of the day. We have made a batch of daquiris ready for captains table cocktail hour later.

 

Having seen no other vessels for days we had a bit of "excitement" over night when a container ship from Senegal appeared on the radar. At one stage it was set to pass right by us but they changed their course slightly and we missed them by about 7 miles - too far for a visual. We almost called them on the radio to say hi but decided that a 4am chat with two excited ARC sailors was not what they wanted. We know there are other ARC boats nearby but they are out of range of our AIS and radio on which we have heard nothing for quite some time.

 

It is December 1 today so we are officially in the countdown for Christmas. It definitely doesn't feel like it here - how could it where we are - but Sam has vowed to make some mince pies (the pastry dough is in the fridge and ready to go tomorrow) and I've been threatening the rest of the crew with my Christmas hits playlist for a few days now. I am acutely aware that I need to pick my moment, as I fear if I go too hard too soon there may be a mutiny and i may not make it to St Lucia!

 

I have continued to write some music to go along with my country and western song, Squall Country, today. I'm pleased with the progress so far but it isn't ready yet. I'll keep you posted! Jooj thinks we need to shoot the video for it out here so we need to make some progress in the next few days!

 

We are trying to fish again today - it's not going well. We had to do some emergency repairs on the rubber squid the other day because it was ravaged by the waves. News from another boat we are in touch with is that the fish are now too big out here and they are simply biting the lures off. One of the fishing rods on that boat was smashed to pieces, the fish was so big. Thankfully we don't have rods - our lines are just tied to the back of the boat so at least we don't have to worry about that.

 

The wind and rain of the last few days has made the swell particularly big - we are downwind so the waves hit us from behind lifting the back of the boat up and surfing us along. Ocassionally they are so big they break over the back and splash the cockpit. It can be quite disconcerting to sit in the cockpit looking back and see a wall of sea two or three metres high coming at you but we are all pretty used to it now.

 

Tomorrow is mean to be a bit calmer and so is provisionally pencilled in as our mid point swim day - if the swell is sufficiently reduced to allow for that. I'm sort of excited to swim in the middle of the Atlantic but I'm also a bit anxious about it. Maybe I'm secretly hoping we won't be able to so I can save face! We have discussed the need to have someone with a snorkel looking out for approaching sharks! That said with the exception of kamikaze flying fish we have seen very little other life out here but we can't escape the fact that small fish mean big fish which mean bigger predators! I'm putting it to the back of my mind for the time being and we will be avoiding Jaws for movie night until after the swim!

 

Today we did a food audit and planned out the menu for the next nine days to hopefully take us beyond our arrival in St Lucia. Provisioning this time has been absolutely spot on and all being well we will arrive into St Lucia with only the emergency tinned and dried food left, and possibly a portion of chicken or two. By planning initially to ensure the fresh food was used we had almost no waste with the expection of the odd mouldy orange or bendy carrot, and by the looks of things we won't have to tuck into the emergency Steak and Kidney Frey Bentos pies in a tin! I'm pretty sure most of the guys would rather eat the plain rice or just muesli for a few days instead of that. The food this time has been excellent. It was great on the first leg but this leg we have had a lot of variety and that has kept things really interesting. Steak night #2 is tomorrow which I'm really excited about. That said i'm looking forward to going to a nice restaurant when we get there - even though the food is great preparing it, and eating it, on what is effectively a rollercoaster, is challenging.