ARC+ Cape Verde - Day 6 Land Ahoy!
Walkabout has gone Sailing
Andrew and Traci Roantree
Sat 13 Nov 2021 15:30
Land in sight, boats finishing at regular intervals now and we are 6 nautical miles out from the finishing line!
Rally Control requires us to contact them 2 miles out alerting them of our arrival and again with our finishing time once we cross the line.
Eventful, proud, confident and learnings with a huge dollop of ‘we made it’!!!! An incredible experience!
How daunted we felt at the beginning and after a bit of a rocky start leaving England crossing Biscay, we are a pretty slick team on board our amazing home, ‘Walkabout’.
Our sail changes as a dual-handed boat have become smoother, less shouty (!) and quicker.
Andrew is out foredeck hand and me on n the cockpit.
Another lovely evening’s sail before the wind dropped to 5knots and our boat speed with it to under 2 knots at times leaving us like a sitting duck bobbing around with no means of steering a course as we had no drive. After many hours of hopeful wishing for the wind to return, we agreed to start the engine and motor.
Our arrival time extended to Sunday evening as we were going so slow so a good decision for certain!
Five hours of motoring and the wind picked up to 9 knots so we set up the G1 and main and are sailing once again.
Many boats were in a similar position and have motored part or all the way to the finishing line.
Overall it’s been an absolute blast loving every minute of our journey both learning much about our new home and ourselves.
Now we able to look forward to the next leg, Grenada, 16-18 days with confidence and excitement.
A last farewell to the Atlantic between Las Palmas and Mindelo with a few lovely shots of last nights sunset.
