Position Wednesday 6th December 12.00 (ships time) 14:20.7N 54:25.0W

 

The day started very well with a morning sighting of Dolphins, who played with us for a bit before going off to school (geddit?).

 

 

The day nearly went from good to great when we hooked what we thought was a Wahoo, but sadly the fish won the tough battle and it was a case of another one that got away.

 

 

We're currently fighting for position with Sailing Yacht (SY) A Noi.  We pulled away from her this morning, but during the course of today she's been gaining on us.  Although our catamaran is better going downwind, we're up to 20 tonnes heavier than your average cruising monohull, like A Noi, so she's been making the most of the light winds today. Sadly it's a similar forecast for tomorrow too. Friday's wind looks like being 15-25kn heading into St Lucia, so hopefully we'll keep our nose in front. Any small victories at this stage are very welcome.

 

After last night's squall, we experienced a few more today, bringing sails down, putting them up etc..  Now we’re well into the tropics and approaching the Caribbean ,the water and air is warmer, 31 and 33c respectively and there’s a much greater chance of water being pulled up into clouds forming the squall.  As we said last night, we have to be on alert for them because of the damage they can do if we’re flying large sails! Here’s a screen shot from the radar of a decent sized one (red blob) that passed us by today.  Even though we steered to starboard to avoid it by 0.5nm or so, we still felt the wind pick up and a direction shift.

 

 

It's therefore not surprising that all the tension over the squalls has led the crew to consider having a much need drink.  Look what happened when we went to the relevant cabinet... astonishing lack of trust from the Captain! 

 

 

As a side note, there were no chores today, not quite sure why - maybe there will be a double dose tomorrow.  Or maybe Captain Guy is going soft?

 

We have a late contender in the beard contest.  As chief medical officer, she obviously has access to all sort of drugs, including steroids.  You may have noticed that her face has rarely been seen in the blog over the last few days.  This is why...

 

 

We know you've been inundated with sunset shots over the days, but here is a pic of someone taking a sunset picture (wearing a crew shirt).  It's actually an 'arrival in St Lucia' crew shirt that’s being worn.  He's so excited he put it on a little early.

 

 

It’s Wednesday evening as we write this.  We expect to arrive in St Lucia on Friday pm, just in time for sun-downers at Spinnakers in Rodney Bay.

 

We hope!!

 

Crew of Moose x