Date: 03/12/2009 13:53:30

Latitude: 18.09
Longitude: -49.07

Daily Log Number 11, ARC 2009, Thursday 3rd December. 1240 UTC
 
It's raining again... I can hear the song in my head, but I just can't sing it! I turned on the radar a minute ago and all I got was rain showers all over the place, behind us, both sides, everywhere. There is absolutely no way the watch on deck can do anything other than laugh as they sit through yet another squall. Most squalls don't really come to much, but some - wow, do they dump rain and at the same time the wind shoots up. In fact over the last 24 hours the only time we have felt like we are going well is when we have been under a squall.
 
It's now mid morning out here on the ocean and still with little wind but a better direction, we have been able to put the Swedish spinnaker back up and are at last going reasonably well again. Having just said that, there is a big black ugly cloud behind us bearing down on us like a freight train. I will have to just go and take a look. Okay, that was easy, it looked horrible with a sheet of rain being blown horizontally out towards us; we reversed the process, spinnaker down and headsail out - we're getting quite good at this now.
 
We do have some great, unique moments out here; dolphins are always welcome, and indeed last night both watches were kept company for a while by dolphins. During the afternoon we were being chased down by another rain squall and Wheels was driving; behind her and in front of the cloud was a perfect rainbow, framing her like half a halo, horizon to horizon, it couldn't have arranged itself better.
 
The big event of the day was that with the boat speed dropping to almost zero and a gap in the squalls, Rebecka pleaded with us for a swim and won - hope that you like the picture of most of the crew in the water. Quite a lot of funny suntans, aren't there? It was a very brief window of opportunity and we picked up another squall within minutes of getting back aboard, so we were very lucky.
 
 
Today's featured star is Juha from Finland. Juha is 49 with his 50th coming up in February, and decided that having celebrated his 40th by driving a formula 1 car, he would celebrate his 50th by sailing across the Atlantic ocean. Juha is married to Seija, and has four children Timi, Tiia, Noona and Patricia. He makes his living as an entrepreneur and lives in Tampere which is 170 kilometers from Helsinki. Juha started sailing dinghies and for the last 10 years has cruised every year in the Mediterranean with his family. Juha is normally at his happiest when we are trying to get a spinnaker down in too much wind, and he can wrestle the out of control cloth down with lots of Finnish exclamations.  

 

 
We have had a slow 24 hours, very slow, but have managed to sail 125 miles towards St Lucia which is a bit of a miracle really. Having taken the opportunity to have a mid Atlantic swim, however, we don't feel upset and look forward to the wind picking up again later today. We are still trying to treat Steve's eye infection and again just have to be patient to allow the medicines time to work. A bientot, Julian