Graham
06/12/2008, North Atlantic Ocean
With a smooth sea,
and very little wind, we cast our mind back to how the Atlantic crossing should
have been; 15 to 25 knot trade winds, zooming the boat along at 7 to 8 knots,
with an estimated time to Saint Lucia of between 18 and 21 days. Ho ho ho! How
wrong could anyone have been! We have seen no sign whatsoever of any trade
winds at all. During the last 2 days, the wind has not increased above 12
knots, and even more depressing, the forecast for tomorrow and the following
day is no wind at all! So, the engine is likely to be on for the next 2 days as
we must make an average of 120 Nm per day now to get to Saint Lucia before the
ARC closing ceremony. There are many other boats 'in the same boat' so to speak
and we are in regular contact with many of them via our HF SSB radio. So,
today, we passed the halfway marker and cracked open a bottle of bubbly to
celebrate. The sun has been out all day and it has been a sweltering 30 Deg C.
Mark A has baked up some homemade bread which was very tasty, and I have been
instructing Mark T in the use of the sextant to work out our longitude and
latitude. Time tonight for a 'special meal', a meal that each crew member makes
just once on the crossing and the menu is unknown to the remaining crew.
Tonight it's my turn, only in this case, the menu also remains a mystery to me,
so I had better get on with it....!
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