Birthday Celebrations in the Middle of Nowhere

Speed!

Sunday 3 December (Steve’s Birthday)

Woken at six this morning by shouts of ‘11 knots’ and we have well and truly cut the rubber band that dragged us back to Cape Verde. Steady winds from astern with mighty Atlantic rollers to add to the boat speed means we are rolling along towards our destination. We have 1438 nautical miles to go and have covered 2084 from from Gran Canaria.

Happy Birthday Steve

It’s my 59^th birthday today and it’s the remotest place I have ever celebrated this occasion. Lunch was marvellous with a birthday card made on the boat, a fine beetroot salad and, best of all, a cold beer. Thanks to everyone on the boat.

We seem to have left the dolphins behind in Cape Verde although the flying fish are still with us, sometimes in shoals of 20 or more. We haven’t found a fresh enough one on deck to eat yet, but they will be on the menu one of these days

Cheers

Steve

Skipper Ricky’s update

Breakfast : Spanish Omelette, Lunch : Salad Buffet, Dinner : Lancashire Hotpot

Fishing : Suspended because of excessive boat speed

Music: Mostly just boat noises, whining propeller, snoring and the generator, some mother music in the galley – Ed Shearan

Notes and comments :

Stable and fresh winds are giving us good boat speeds with poled out Yankee 1. Helming is generally good with some more stable than others, and some causing big boat rolls. At the moment we are grinding out the miles, straight line “sail as fast as you can” straight down the rhumb line to Rodney Bay. We are tracking our required miles per day and required knots and have been keeping on target so far to reach St Lucia on the 12th. If the good speed continues we may just squeak in late evening on the 11th. The wind forecast certainly looks good for the next week, with an especially good wind angle for the last few days into St Lucia.

The crew are settling into swaying from side to side as they walk down below and have found the more comfortable spots on the boat to wedge themselves into. We have the full moon now, and that is making the evenings very enjoyable, although we are missing looking up at the stars. After moonset in the early hours the stars do come out to play for a while.

Today is Steve’s birthday and the mothers and mother helpers have been baking cakes and cookies to celebrate. Laeticia spent considerable time and skill yesterday making a card for Steve which we will all sign and hopefully it will make his day special. The chefs are busy concocting a trifle for pudding for this evenings meal. Minor issue is the instructions for the gelatine are all in Spanish, we will see what happens, think we have identified the measurements for sugar, water and gelatine powder. If not, we may have invented a suitable material to mould into comfortable seats for the deck.

Soon after that we will have our halfway party. I will probably delay it until Wednesday so that we spread out the festivities a bit even though we will be well over halfway by then. Maybe we will have an 1000nm to go party instead.

We are passing over the Rocket Seamount which rises to 640m below the sea from a depth of 5000m. Pretty impressive mountain, if only it had risen a bit more we would have a convenient stop off point for our Atlantic crossing. I told the crew this and the best question – “will we be able to see it?”

We swapped the Working and Lazy Yankee sheets around while we stayed polled out. A bit of thinking through of the solution and some pole-end to deck coordination and it all went smoothly. It was made slightly more convoluted because we are flying the Storm Staysail hanked on the Foreguy. Generally checked the deck for chafe and did a rig check.

Special message to the mate on BOB. Missing ya, catch us if you can. Love you lots, see ya in St Lucia. xxx

Posted by: First Class Sailing