Approaching St Lucia
SY Coral IV
Kolbjørn Haarr and Otto Hulbak / Morten Persson
Wed 12 Dec 2012 21:58
The last couple of days have just involved everything getting hotter and
hotter as we near the West Indies. The night watches have been amazing with the
soft warm air blowing over you and simply begging you to doze off as the boat
speeds on. We’re all incredibly tired now and the stand by for the watch keeper
generally tends to arrive on deck, update the log and then slump in the cockpit,
dead to the world. The other night I somehow managed to stand three night
watches. That’s nine hours of staring into darkness in a twelve hour night. But
what darkness! The moon is no longer more than a sliver which joins us at about
6am and for the rest of the night there is the most magnificent canopy of stars
to gape at in awe. I have never seen so many shooting stars and have got through
so many wishes that I’m getting on to the really selfless stuff like world
peace, bankruptcy for Rupert Murdoch, that kind of worthy stuff.
Yesterday Ivory and I spent hours at the bow of the boat reading in the
shade cast by the headsails. As the yacht curtsied to the glistening waves, we
agreed that this was all most satisfactory and we’d happily carry on sailing the
oceans for a long time yet. By contrast, today has been a deeply unsatisfactory
day for me. Exhausted by night watch, I had a most fraught early morning watch
and retired to my bunk feeling dreadful. Alas, today is my day to be ‘Kock’, so
I was up again within the hour producing some delicious breakfast fare with all
the good grace and bonhomie of Naomi Campbell. It’s so hot I have almost no
interest in food and even less in creating some fine dining for tonight so god
knows what they are going to get. We reckon we will get in to St Lucia at some
time in the early hours of Friday morning. After that I am going on a diet which
involves no cooking.
//Sam |