Boat still operating in GMT time, so I have no idea on what time it really is, its dark and its my shift, 0100-0400 GMT seems late or early, but I just checked local time and its only 9pm, so we should be getting ready to go party! That is still at least a day away.

Another great day, sunny, calm seas, light winds – so much so that we took down the spinnaker and tried to use one engine for awhile (30mins). The engine at low RPM was barely doing better than the spinnaker, so put the sail back up, and an hour or two later the winds had come back up to over 10 knots so that the spinnaker would stay flying. We did change sides of the boat we were running the spinnaker on when we dropped it, which gave us a better run at our course.

Ham and Cheese omelets for breakfast – we still have lots of egs, you buy them by the flat with 30 eggs per flat. I think we have 2 flats left after 3 weeks on the run.

Ran the generator, made some water, cleaned up the bilge in the port engine room, mounted the bilge switch that was just floating around. Used the shore cable to move the Generator to the bow, so that all the noise went down wind away from us – much better to relax away from the noise.

Scallopini de Pollo in a lemon button sauce for dinner, came out pretty good. Again no left overs, so thats a good sign.

Overall it seemed like a slow day on the miles front but we are within 200 miles now, and the wind picked up after dark, and we are surfing down some waves at 11 knots straight toward the finish line. Started to checking the paperwork to make sure we have everything we need to enter St Lucia, and know where to go.

Christine is ready for some girl chat, she has had enough of the testosterone on board. I offered to paint my nails if that’d help, but don’t really think thats what she had in mind.

The master toilet is broke today, Marvin fixed it once, it broke again, I fixed it – it should work for now. Not a fun job, but when something breaks you gotz to fix it. I’m really surprised they let me cook dinner tho.. *smile* It was just the flush pedal that needed some adjustment, so it was not a very nasty job… but it could have been.

We have a report from one on Ron’s buddies that we are ahead of 143 of the 200 boats that started in the ARC. We are expecting to see some boats but still haven’t seen any. With 200 miles left to go, they should be around here somewhere, maybe tomorrow we’ll see a couple. Course we did use our engines quite a bit the first week, so its not really fair to compare our position against those that only sailed and left 3 days before us.

Crew is really getting anxious about having someone else cook some food and clean up after us. Marvin and Ron are ready to get home after being gone for over 2 months. Christine wants to stay here till after Christmas – but neither of us have vacation left and some of these extra days are unpaid time off.

It still looking like a Wednesday arrival – in the dark of course – so now hoping for clear skies too!

Is that Rum I smell, Barbados is over there to the left of us right now. We’d stop there first if we had more time. Trade wind sailing is cool, the wakes behind us go up and over the waves as we surf down the waves and up the next one.

Course over ground: 271 Speed over ground: 8.7kn Total miles through water: 731 Miles to destination: 191 kn (as a crow).

Keep Keeping On. Up at day break to set the big spinnaker, after a slow night under jib alone. Whoosh and off we went, back up to knocking off the miles.

Talked Christine into doing breakfast again, Flap Jacks for all.

After a few hours, the wind piped up, and we really weren’t able to stay on course with the big spinnaker up, so it was time to take it down. Down it came without any issues other than a little crew confusion. So a quick crew meeting, so that everyone does a defined role and not everyone trying to do all the roles at the same time. One at the helm, manages the steering, one at the bow to manage the sock and sail, one at the tack line and one at the spinnaker sheet, and one at the spinnaker halyard, opps might be one short here..

Sailed along with normal sails, 1 reef in the main, as we had just had 24 knots of wind and full jib. After getting back on course the wind was only putting out 16 knots. Now we needed more sail. Frustrating, few minuets trying to get the best out of the sails, we had course, but slow speeds. 30 minutes later, we are raising the spinnaker again, this time we can keep course and all is good.

Beautiful day of sailing, and the little Honda generator replenished our batteries in 3 hrs, so it was nice quiet day with lots of water rushing under the keels.

We had bought some ‘long life’ bread in the Canaries, the morning we were leaving. Its some vacuum sealed stuff, looked normal when we got it, took a package out today and it looked like it had been through a decompression chamber. It however made some pretty good panini sandwiches for lunch. Might have to do that again soon.

Saw a sailboat today, they had white sails, off our starboard side, then they hoisted a red spinnaker for a few hours. We tried to call them by “red spinnaker, red spinnaker this is blue spinnaker” but no one answered. We were just going to ask, “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?”. They put the spinnaker away and headed more south than us, and just like that we are all alone out here, at least visually.

While cooking pizza for dinner, I took a look at the Ralph the salted pig leg, and it had started growing some stuff, so instead of waiting till we were sure we had enough food for the rest of the trip, executive decision to feed jaws some pork. It sunk like a rock! Pizza and some rum to celebrate under 400 miles to go.

Nice night, couple of clouds, bright moon, lots of stars, calm seas and spinnaker still up, and running on course. Very peaceful.

Currently estimating a Wednesday arrival

Course over ground: 265 Speed over ground: 8.1kn Total miles through water: 542 Miles to destination: 352 kn (as a crow).

Ah Saturday, our original flights home are tomorrow, Sunday the 12th. We still have about 500 miles to go.

Woke up at first light to see if we could carry the large spinnaker, and yes we can. Pulled the big-un out of the bow, and started inspecting the lines and noticed that one of the shackles that goes at the top of the spinnaker sock had gone awol. Unpack the bag looking for the needle in the spinnaker to no avail. This shackle is all of about a 1/2 inch – nothing else on this boat is remotely that small, we have 3 or 4 inch everything to support these loads. Looking everywhere for a bolt or screw that we can use (takes an hour or more), we finally settle on a cotter pin, bent to lock in the pulley that raises and lowers the spinnaker sock.

The hoist goes without issues, Christine driving in to the wind, me pulling on the sock on the foredeck, and Marvin minding the sheets in the aft. And just like that we are making good time again.

Breakfast of cereal and juice, nothing fancy after a spinnaker hoist, but knowing that we’ll have to have lunch after cereal for breakfast. I hardly call cereal a meal.

With the nice day, I took the wet dead spinnaker out of the bag to dry out and inspect the damage. The sail is shapped like an “A” complete with the cross bar in the “A” the sail ripped above the crossbar all the way down to the bottom of the A’s feet. We’ll see if they want to repair the 10 year old mold smelling spinnaker or suggest a full replacement at a sail loft in St. Lucia. Either way a couple of lessons learned, let go when it tries to rip the rope out of your hand, when Christine says we need to do something, do it. *smile* (Some might think I should have learned this already)

Cracking along @ 9-13 knots depending on waves we watch the wind speed intently when on watch, the winds are forecast to go light on us, and we don’t want to injure this soldier as well.

Some pita sandwiches complete with jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, and this wonderful English cheddar that Ron found in Gibraltar.

We has used a lot of electricity running Auto and Radar all night but waited till my shift to start the Generator to make some electricity and make some fresh water. Took about 5 hours on the Honda to top us back up, noisy little bugger but still better than running the big diesel engines.

The water maker makes water at about 16 gallons an hour, so to fill our 80 gallon tanks it runs quite a while. It takes the fresh sea water and pumps it through a membrane that is so fine only water gets through, the salt and other impurities can’t pass through the membrane. I forget the rate exactly but it has to pump several gallons through to get a cup of fresh water. We cook, drink, bath with this water and no one has gone mad cow yet, so it can’t be all bad.

Christine’s was on watch when the limits for the spinnaker were starting to broach. Executive decision to take down the spinnaker was hard as they apparent wind was just over 15k, but we have more slow days ahead. Dropped the spinnaker without issues.

I took the opportunity to explore sailing with a little main and jib. Triple reefed the main, so it was pretty small. Then pulled out the jib, not going to win any races that way. probably 1 knot slower than jib alone as the main sort of blocked the wind to the jib, on this deep reach. Didn’t get a chance to really try to tweak it as the crew looked real disappointed in going from 10+ knots to 5 knots. Back under jib alone still doing 5 knots, but with bursts to 7 over the waves – I’m not convinced yet that jib alone is faster.

Peroggi for dinner, basically a polish dish that resembles ravioli with sautéed onions and mushrooms in a butter sauce. Wasn’t sure how the crew would like it, but it was gone in a flash.

Beautiful night, little sticky tho, 1/4 moon in the sky shimmering over the water, scattered clouds to reflect the moon light and ghosting along at 5-7 knots. Might watch a movie on the iTouch to pass the time on to night. If we were racing we’d be raising the spinnaker now, as the conditions are great right now, relatively flat ocean and winds just under 20 knots.

Crew is doing well, predictions are being made as to the land fall day, Wednesday seems to be the odds favorite. Sun is hot, getting a tan, needed shade after my watch. Supposedly we somewhere in the mix of the ARC boats with about 40% behind us, but haven’t seen another sailing boat in more than a week, the report is that there are at least 2 boats within 100 miles of us.

Course over ground: 251 Speed over ground: 6.0kn Total miles through water: 351 Miles to destination: 505 kn (as a crow).