Hi All

Our current DTW (distance to waypoint) is 62 nm! How I wish I was in a car...less than an hour and I'd be in possession of the arrival bowl of fruit and importantly rum punch! I'm trying to be patient, but I think I'm close to driving Chloe insane. I have a lot of energy having been contained in a 46 by 14 ft yacht for the last 19 days. My sister will no doubt sympathise with Chloe. Still, less than 9 hours and we should be there. Approx midnight our time, and 4am Saturday morning back at home.

Winds have been kind for the past few days and we have hopes of catching a couple of boats in our class that were just 1 and 5 miles ahead of us yesterday. We have chased down a yacht and gone past her today - not sure what or who she is but its still nice to be in front! If we do manage to overhaul the boats closest to us then we have a shot at finishing in the top 5 over the line in our class. Motoring penalties will then come into it and we think we will compare favourably there.

You would think, that with circa 50 boats due to finish today, we would start to see a few, but as yet we have only seen the one.

As we will be arriving late, we have decided to have a small on board party and then get a good night's sleep before we spend the whole of Saturday carrying on our arrival celebrations. We have beers and wine chilling in the fridge and expect to have Jan (Caruthers’s wife) and Bridget waiting on the pontoon to join us.

Crouchy (The basil plant) is strugging to contain his excitment at making it to the caribbean. He will look the part in its grass skirt and flowers.

Once we are able to check out the internet connections in St Lucia, we will start to send pictures, after a much needed dip in the ocean.

Hi All

The winds have returned today and we have been making good progress. We have 750 miles to go as I’m typing this email. If we average 150 nm days from here we will be in St Lucia in time for Saturday night. That is now our big target.

Bridget will have been in St Lucia for a few days by then - her flight is tomorrow. Fortunately, during the pre-departure party, Namaste made plenty of friends so Bridget will have no problems in passing the time till we arrive. (Bridget - just mention that you are with 'the yachting jacket'. It will get you right in there with the Champagne swigging Swan & Oyster owners!)

The sea has now changed to a magnificent rich cobalt blue, with long shafts of sunlight which dance into the depths. It's difficult to guess, but I imagine you must be able to see quite far down - maybe 30 - 40ft. Quite different from the coastal Essex waters, and perfect for our daily snorkelling trips that we will be taking in St Lucia!

Our attention has now turned to what we are going to do on the island. From our Footprint guide, it appears that there is going to be a huge amount for us all to do; diving, snorkelling, hiking, eating, drinking, shopping...its endless!

Its snack time now and I might challenge Will to a cracker dual.

Bye for now.

Namaste

x

P.S Paul says 'go wild Bridget, hang the cost till we get there, massages etc all on me' (I might lose my IT& Comms job for that!)

Hi All

It has been a few days since I sent the halfway blog.

We have indifferent winds since then, making good progress on a couple of days and then having to motor quite a bit yesterday as there was just no wind at all. Today has been the same - wind speeds of 3 - 6 knots.

To alleviate the windless boredom we have taken to cracker eating contests on an almost daily basis. There is something endlessly funny in watching Paul and Jeremy scoffing as many crackers as possible in 3 minutes! If we ever run out of crackers - which is doubtful - we might have to start a nut based game. We have nuts galore on board.

Crackers aside, there were two big positives from yesterday. The first came in the form of a big squall. It gave us the chance to replenish fresh water for washing. Positioning buckets around the bimini (basically a secured parasol) means that within 5 mins you easily have enough water for 6 people to wash. I went onto the foredeck to lather up but typically, the rain stopped before I could rinse off.

Over the last few days we have been in the company of some other yachts on the ARC. None of us have enough wind to get away from one another and have just been hovering on each others horizons. This will probably continue until the winds pick up.

Night watches have turned into dusk watches, as providing there isn’t too much cloud, the moon which is only 1/2 full provides a lot of light. We hope to arrive in St Lucia just before the full moon.

Hope everyone is well.

Nihil est simul et inventum et perfectum.

Namaste

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes and how many times must the cannons ball fly before they fall ever band?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind!

A little bit of Bob Dylan to celebrate the fact that we have some wind back! The night was a little intermittent, but at last we seem to be in a better space.

Spirits are high this morning too as we have reached our halfway point in terms of our route (our route is more like 3,000 compared with the direct rhum line). Rum line would be far more appropriate. We hope that we will take less time to cover the second half, the boat is lighter as we have consumed a decent chunk of our rations, but this will depend on how the winds treat us.

In celebration of the halfway point, we will be having a party luncheon!

Hi All

We have been enduring a period of slack to non existent winds for the past 24/36 hours. We are managing to convert what we wind we do have into reasonable progress at times, but this progress is invariably halted by a drop in the wind.

Everyone on board is tired due to the slow rocking motion that is almost hypnotic. Its strange too, that bobbing in one spot for any length of time is in a way an unsettling experience. I guess party due to the thought of boats catching us or pulling away from us and party as it puts into perspective what a vast expanse of ocean we are in, and with no wind we could be here for quite sometime!

As I type, we seem to have come completely to a standstill. There is a dark cloud hovering to port - at least if we have a squall pass over I might get a shower!

Today has been the 1st day for 3-4 days that we have seen another vessel. A large cargo ship that passed 3 nm ahead of us bound for Norway - motoring along at 12 knots - how we would love for some wind to give us that sort of speed!

We are eagerly anticipating the position update from the ARC at 19.00 tonight so that we can see who else has been struck by this lack of wind. Hopefully we are not the only ones! By our reckoning, we are actually in a better position than most, but weather forecasts have been famously wrong in the past!

In our becalmed state, we have taken to reading, sleeping and listening to music.  I'm off outside to do my best impression of a vacuum cleaner...we have got to get wind from somewhere. I'll let you know how I get on.

Good morning all

We are fast approaching the completion of our 8th full day at sea. We had a very calm night, but still managed to creep along at 5.5 - 6 knots. Not the speeds that we are hoping for, but it has given everyone the chance to rest up.

From the daily distance figures we have been getting, we have been among the pace setters in the C division for a number of days and by our estimate we are 5th, in terms of least distance from St Lucia. We are also the farthest south in the division, so hope to make up some more ground.

We caught our 2nd fish yesterday. It was a case of 3rd time lucky before we landed it. I had three bites in quick succession, but the first two manage to escape just short of the boat - I had been fighting with them for 80 odd metres by that point, so pretty frustrating! We have had one flying fish land on the boat, and one that stuck Paul in the back on a night watch (not sure if I have already told you that). Its amazing how far they go out of the water, and how fast. Occasionally you get a flurry of activity when there are literally hundreds of them skipping over the surface.

Temperatures have gone up a notch in the last couple of days. Its continually no less than 25*C in the saloon, even at night. During the day yesterday we were up at 32*C. Right now, at 08.36 it is 28.6*C outside. While that all sounds very nice, it does have its draw backs - there is limited water with which to shower, and no escape from the heat, even just for a few minutes. I have had quite a few sleepless nights as a consequence.

I had a real giggle yesterday, when over lunch we were talking about our arrival and cooling dips in the Caribbean sea. Jeremy's admission, given the mid Atlantic surroundings, that he 'hates salt water' set me off.

Breakfast is about to be served - its a meat eating day so sausages, bacon and eggs! The vegetables on board have already eaten their muesli.

Hope everyone is well and you have remembered to open the first day on the advent calendar!

Lots of love