Commodore
January 17, 2022

16th January – One week down!

No pics from the boat today – so here is a photo of the Pitons in St Lucia from yesterday (Phoebe) x

The Asymmetric sail had to come down in the early hours of the morning as we hit the lull, and the engines went on. We motored until our late breakfast when the wind was consistently over 7knots. The Asymmetric went up again, Rowan and Tom have got it down to a perfect art, getting the sail up and down successfully in a couple of minutes, I am beginning to feel less intimidated by it!

With the wind hovering below 10 knots we managed to maintain a decent speed, the sea is like a mill pond and the water is already 26 degrees, with loads of sargasso weed about already. Poor Luke’s wishes for a sushi lunch were wrecked by the weed getting stuck on the fishing lines all the time.

Mid afternoon Rowan decided to get the drone out again. He had had a little altercation with it a few days ago when he had forgotten to take the avoidance setting off and it seemed to think the whole boat was something to avoid. Finally Tom managed to knock it onto the boat from the front and Rowan grabbed it, drawing just a little blood! Today’s adventures went a little further, Rowan got the avoidance setting off and decided to take it low over the waves. Sadly he misjudged the swell and the drone has had an inglorious burial at sea!

Later in the afternoon the wind picked up to the low teens and we were getting a very welcome 10knots of boat speed, which got us all very excited as every now and then our Distance to Waypoint (now St Lucia) is 10 days away!

We had hoped for a movie night with the little projector Rowan had bought, but sadly we discovered we should have downloaded the app, which of course without signal is impossible. It was not too disappointing as we are all going to bed really early to compensate for our shifts.

Our bananas are suddenly ripening very quickly, so we had delicious caramelised bananas for pudding, much to Han’s disgust as she can barely be in the same room as a banana!

Otherwise we get a trickle of news. Impressed with ballsy Australia kicking out Novak for 3 years, not so impressed that Boris is still clinging on! Phoebs is happily in her Airbnb with her boyfriend Daniel, in charge of our reception committee. It’s looking more promising that I may just celebrate my 60th on land.