Commodore
January 26, 2022

Final call for 60th birthday wishes! / Place your bets on ETA

Thanks so much to all those who’ve sent 60th wishes to me, any final ones (I’m looking at your grandparents!) please email to me phoebe@gormleyandgamble.com or WhatsApp to me on +447577461740

Please place your bets on ETAS, Arc says 204NM left, and they’re doing 160NM per 24 hours, so should be 6pm tomorrow but the app says eta is 3am, and dad is more optimistic. Whoever gets the closest bet will win a congratulations video from the crew and a round of Hannah’s mocktails on their next visit to Pole Pole ❤️

January 26 Day 17

We are now heading straight for St Lucia and with the wind, what little there is, behind us. It was about 8am when Rowan and Tom got Scary the Wingaker up. She billowed and puffed all day beautifully, it is a lovely gentle motion but there was not enough wind to give us much speed. So by the afternoon we had the engines on as well to give the speed a little boost. Rowan has worked out that we have enough fuel now that we are approaching the 300 mile mark. Everyone is determined we get in on my birthday now it is just feasible. It’s our only night the whole family will be together as Han leaves for Botswana on the 29th. Phoebs is willing us on, informing us we have just overtaken a boat, so we are now in 5th position! Fascinating seeing all the different routes the 50 Arc boats have taken, we have certainly taken the route with the biggest distance, Rowan reckons we have done 700 miles more than those who did the northern route. We can’t believe there are still boats out there with over 1000 miles to go. We met some Canadians on the Arc who were checking out of immigration in Las Palmas at the same time as us, turned out she was originally from South Africa, we heard on the Arc satellite update that they have a problem generating power, they have enough just for navigation but are powering on, Han spotted they still have over 1000miles to go. Poor things we are all very excited to be getting to land soon, but guess they have weeks to go unless the Trade winds beef themselves up.

The ultimate highlight of the day was Rowan discovered the stash of movies he had downloaded, including the latest James Bond movie, so everyone is suddenly looking forward to their shifts!

Luke cooked the vegetable lasagne for us, adding loads of blitzed mushrooms to the tomato sauce, which gave it a very tasty boost.

We had hoped to keep Scary up all night but we had some squalls appearing on the horizon and we decided to be sensible and safe, so down she came and we motored the rest of the night.