With the end so close, last night was probably our last proper night on the ARC.  By supper tomorrow we’ll be within a few hours of the finish.  So I thought a photo sailing towards the sunset was appropriate. 

The wind let up a bit overnight, although not much and we still made good speed.  There was another fantastically clear sky while I was on watch (2 a.m. to 4 a.m.) and I must have seen 20 or so shooting stars and of more variety than I thought existed; from extremely fast, bright ones to some that seemed so slow as to almost hang in the sky for a good few seconds before fading out. One or two seemed to come down so low as to hit the water.  I realise it’s much more sensible to be an astronomer in a warm climate than in the UK.  The only clear starry nights I remember at home have been accompanied by sub-zero temperatures - the reason my astronomy lecturer at university told me his most important piece of astronomical equipment was a good set of thermal underwear.  It’s certainly much easier to lie on deck in t-shirt and shorts (and yes - lifejacket and clipped-on harness too) in 28 deg heat.

As we approach the land, it’s getting busier out here.  Well, a bit busier!  We had a large tanker cross our path around midnight and spotted a light on the horizon behind us about the same time.  The light on the horizon turned out to be Frdy from Norway, another ARC boat in our class about 8 miles astern.  They called us up on the VHF to see if we could see them because their AIS and radar reflectors were not working and they were worried about the tanker.  We assured them we could, and kept our eyes on them.

Fryd stayed on out track for most of the night, but just before dawn they suddenly started catching us up. We assume they had just put up their spinnaker to increase speed.  They called us up again as they drew close and we agreed to take pictures of each other for swapping later on. Well, although we aren’t treating this too competitively, we felt we couldn’t just watch them go past without making some sort of effort.  So with a sigh, we set aside our plates of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, and poled out the genoa again.  The additional sail area increased our speed by almost a knot and Fryd has stopped pulling ahead.  As I write we are neck a neck (as you can probably see from the ARC Tracker website).  Not that we are racing or anything… really!  We’ll reserve you a place in Rodney Bay Fryd.

We’ve set ship’s time now to St. Lucia time (4 hours behind the UK - look up “Castries, St. Lucia” if you want to set it on iPhone).  It’s noon-thirty here now and we’ve just passed the 99 miles to go mark. If current speed holds (7 knots) we have 14 hours left to run.  We’re all looking forward to arriving, but there’s a part of me that’s thinking it’s all gone rather quickly…

Love to you all, especially all those who have exams in the near future, teachers nearing the end of the longest term, those who have to keep the health service going as we approach the darker months and those surviving recent torrents in the lakes.