Date: 04/12/2009 12:40:00
Latitude: 16.42
Longitude: -51.41
Daily Log Number 12, ARC 2009, Friday 4th December. 1240 UTC
Position: 16.42N 51.41W
We have now decided that we have had enough of these squalls, can we please ask someone to give us nice puffy cumulus and normal trade winds again? It does seem that if there is a squall anywhere in the vicinity we seem to have a magnetic attraction that pulls them straight over the top of us. We are still surrounded by these towering squalls all around us, half a dozen at a time on the radar, threading our way underneath the grey clouds and rain. In fact it's not as bad as it sounds: we are managing to avoid most of them and we are back into good winds again. As the winds increase and steady in strength and direction, morale goes up as well so lots of smiles today. Well, every day really.
As you might have read before, squalls can bring rain and increasing wind and every time one comes over the top of us we see the wind rising, take the spinnaker down and then see the wind drop behind it – to nothing! We then sit around with our headsail out, cursing the squall and ourselves for having taken the spinnaker down, going rather slowly nowhere.
So this morning we had a cunning plan. Plan B, if you will. The squall wasn't headed straight over the top of us this time; well, it started that way but split into two and ran down each side of us. Our cunning plan was to leave the spinnaker up this time and therefore not be caught out afterwards. The wind rose to 20, 22, 26 and Northern Child kept going faster and faster, all good progress towards St Lucia. Our cunning plan was going to work, we were sure the wind was about to decrease, but all of a sudden there was a sudden deceleration and we saw the corner of the spinnaker explode off the end of the pole and drift off downwind. Ooops, it wasn't meant to work out like that! Okay, remains of the spinnaker down and headsail up again. The Swedish kite will need a trip to the sailmaker at some stage. Luckily we have another spinnaker down below, slightly bigger and tougher, the American. Within 30 minutes we are back up with the American spinnaker and sailing along nicely at over 8 knots again!
Our photo for the day has Christian outlined by a squall on the horizon to the south. For a change the squall hasn't come straight over the top of us! Christian is 36 and together with Lucy has bought Northern Child from Magali and myself and they are on their first Atlantic circuit. Christian has sailed and raced all his life and has always had the dream of casting off normal life and sailing off into the sunset, a dream that has become reality. Mind you, romantic it might be, with Lucy, but add in the other 11 of us and it's not quite the same. Just wait, idyllic Caribbean sunsets with just the two of them are just around the corner!
Great news, Steve's eye has improved this morning and although Steve is slightly impatient for the full cure (!), we are delighted to report that he has had no pain at all in the last 24 hours. The cloudiness associated with poor vision has improved this morning, by about 20/25%. There is also a marked improvement in reaction to sunlight. We will continue our treatment regime and hope to be able to tell you of more improvement tomorrow.
Lucy is spending a lot of time in the sauna, I mean galley, at the moment, concocting various wonders for us all. They say an army marches on its stomach - so does Northern Child. For tea yesterday afternoon we had mince pies; okay it's not Christmas quite yet and it's pretty hot, but we won't all be together at Christmas so now is better than never. There was a triumph with budgie bread this morning, so called because it didn't rise quite as intended and had the appearance of budgie food; mind you, it didn't stop Christian and myself having three slices each with jam for breakfast! Just come out of the oven is a peach melba tray bake - I've seen it, and I'm not sure how we're going to resist eating it before teatime.
We have managed to pick up the breeze again this morning, but we have still had a fairly slow 24 hour run, covering 166 miles since yesterday. However, the wind is going the right way and there is every hope now that we can have a reasonably quick run in to St Lucia. We are now 557 miles out, and should pass through the 500 to go mile barrier sometime this evening. All's well on board, a bientot, Julian, Northern Child