Date: 06/12/2009 20:55:25
Latitude: 14.47
Longitude: -57.36
Daily Log Number 14, ARC 2009, Sunday 6th December. 1240 UTC
Position: 14.47N 57.36W
It has been a very, very quiet 24 hours out here in the Atlantic. Considering we are now down to our penultimate day, I guess that is good news. At least we haven't broken any spinnakers, because we haven't had a spinnaker flying. The only one we have left is our smallest one which is designed for reaching, sailing closer to the wind. We are currently running, deep running, away from the wind so it wouldn't really help us much, and so it has been firmly left in its' bag where we can't break it.
The forecast for the next 24 hours is for the wind to increase in speed as we approach St Lucia and potentially for quite a lot of wind in some thunderstorms. We can do with the wind, anything to help us on our way, but we could do without the thunderstorms.
As is normal as we approach St Lucia the wind goes right around behind us and it is difficult to find an advantage on one gybe or the other. We are still a long way out but it seems like our arrival is just around the corner. There are complete mixed emotions from those on board – on the one hand there is sadness that the adventure is coming to an end, but on the other is excitement that we are reaching our goal tomorrow, St Lucia. Any sadness, however, will soon be lost in the festivities surrounding our arrival into Rodney Bay!
Did I mention an arrival tomorrow? How silly of me, that almost constitutes bad luck... but, at the moment we are looking good for a daytime arrival into St Lucia, which would be amazing. The crossing this year has been fast for the whole fleet, helped into a quick passage by the first weeks' constant good trade winds in an area that are usually light in winds. Following our good start this year, we have experienced relatively light winds for the second half of the passage meant that the overall course record wasn't broken by the big boats which arrived into Rodney Bay on Friday morning.
On board every day we are concerned with the management and use of power and water. The day before leaving Las Palmas the generator was still in bits being worked on by the ever efficient and optimistic Dieter from Fischer Panda. Much to his credit the unit has worked faultlessly all passage: the lynchpin of running the boat's electrical systems, the working generator has also meant that we have been able to make fresh water every day. We installed a new watermaker over the summer and it produces fresh water from salt by the process of osmosis: on this passage we have produced approximately 300 - 400 litres of fresh water per day. The great thing about this is that it allows us to wash clothes in fresh water and to take showers, a great luxury on board at sea on a long passage. We also run freezers on board Northern Child, again the power coming from the batteries being recharged by the generator. We are fortunate that the supermarket in Las Palmas, El Cortes Ingles, prepares our meat order in advance, vacuum packs it and then freezes all the individual orders down to -40 degrees. Lucy is thus able to have access to good quality frozen meat every day, upon which she works her magic for us - no one has lost any weight on this trip!
A quick note from Robert about how he feels at this stage of the passage: 'I'm looking forward to arriving tomorrow, but with mixed feelings. Of course, I'm looking forward to a full shower, clean clothes and a rum punch on the beach (I've been largely 'dry' on the passage). However, I'll be sorry to leave the boat and its tight-knit little community and to come to the end of a much-anticipated adventure. I will leave with many good memories - no bad ones actually, since it has more than lived up to my expectations. These include the awesome magnificence of the sea, sky and wind, especially when a squall forms and approaches; the wonder and warmth of moonlight and the breadth and depth of the night sky when the moon disappears; the beautiful if sometimes bumpy movement of Northern Child in her element, and the short-term adrenaline rush when things go pear-shaped in the dark of night; and life divided into six and four hour watches, as well as half-hour rotations in function on watch (e.g. at the helm). I will leave with profound satisfaction at our collective achievement under Julian's great leadership - and a father's pleasure at following in the footsteps of our son Marc, who sailed the ARC three years ago. And now for those rum punches...'
We have covered 182 miles towards the waypoint north of St Lucia. This leaves us 203 miles still to run to the finish line and we are hoping for an arrival before dark tomorrow afternoon. A bientot, Julian, Northern Child