Day 6

Day 6

Tam Lin is catching us up. So crew not happy, although all are well!

We took a gamble and headed west before many including, Tam Lin. They took the more traditional route of heading south until the butter melted and turned W. It has worked out OK for us, but our winds subsided yesterday and Tam Lin have reduced our 140 mile lead to 50. But we shall see with the next sit rep. We had a solid run downwind yesterday under the BWR. Strange to keep going for so long with such little sail change. Winds have varied between 10-18 knots ENE so our reciprocal course is WSW straight to St Lucia! At the current rate it will take us two further weeks.

I’m already getting anxious that I’ll run out of time to listen to my podcasts, watch my downloaded YouTubes, read my books on my kindle and start the exercise regime I’ve been contemplating. I might have to sacrifice one of these🤣

Overnight we raced with SV Thetys. We ran close all night, but they headed off N after 8 hours or so. Fascinating to understand what the various skippers have in their mind as to optimal course setting.  The last time I crossed the Atlantic we saw two boats in 3 weeks.  This time we are seeing many more, although that said we haven’t seen anyone now for 18 hours. 

We saw our first dolphins. They were sooo lugubrious barely surfacing to say hi, let alone play! We’ve seen a few sea birds, but there is very little wildlife to be seen.

Our tomatoes are turning, our lettuce has wilted, our cauliflower was just gripped from the jaws of decay (and converted into rice), our peppers have a day left, so fresh food is going to be a thing of the past soon.
I think one more sandwich round with the seemingly long life Bimbo bread and our last saladings.

We had the most lovely fish curry, with mussels, prawns and salmon bought from El Cortes in Las Palmas, supplemented by our own fresh fish. Just so yummy. Dennis commented that he was not expecting such high standards of cuisine 🤣

News from ARC control;

Quote: UK MRCC [coast guard]requested ARC Plus boats make contact with a 12m sailing yacht (not in ARC) which had not reported a position since 21/11. Within 30 minutes of the fleet message 2 reports were relayed to MRCC confirming all OK on the missing vessel which had a failure in long range comms. Information was then passed onto the concerned families. End quote. 

Nice to see how the community works at sea.