Another fantastic day on board, Lancelot is now firmly on course for St Lucia on a south westerly heading closing in on those famous trade winds I have been continually mentioning! Last night’s watch was exceptional, very exciting as we sailed in near darkness by compass alone with a good downwind breeze. Our watch was busy finding comparisons with classic sci-fi films and the closest we got was the Death Star run in Star Wars New Hope with radio command instructing Luke to “stay on target”! I think we are all going slightly crazy, but here we’re enjoying it! Our fun was substantially increased when we spotted we had an actual target to follow, a ship’s light emerging on the horizon. Substantial frenzied activity didn’t really get us too far, but it certainly helped pass the watch hours by, particularly the 2-5 session.
Back on watch at 8am and we were back to light winds and rolling around at 1-2 knots, the spinnaker went down with the jib taking its place and we meandered along past the ever increasingly dark squall clouds.
Eventually we entered under one and within seconds the wind went from 2 knots through to 15 and we were fairly pelting along. Tropical monsoon conditions soon drenched Lancelot and her crew which was fine by me as it rarely gets below 30 degrees celsius out here and I was just in my swimming trunks (trying to get a tan without frying…).
Other crew members took the opportunity to have a fresh water shower, gels whipped out and hair shampooed in the cockpit as Lia helmed through the storm. After a while I took over and in light rain but still stiff breeze we shot through the remaining bits of the squall enjoying some freshly made coffee and cake – how close to perfection is that!
On leaving the squall we were soon back to business as usual, with the sun beaming down on deck and copious lashings of suntan lotion being applied (I’m only writing this as I know what the weather has been doing at home…!). The rest of the day has been spent reading doing some filming and taking some theoretical courses on the use of the spinnaker for the time we will gybe to make the final turn towards to St Lucia.
At present we are 1501 nautical miles from destination and are still in first place in our racing class and fourth overall in the racing division – looking rosy!
One other nautical experience I have omitted to mention are the thousands of flying fish we have encountered over the last few days, these little critters launching themselves at a not inconsiderable height above the water and flying across the ocean at quite some distances. At times they do fly across Lancelot and have actually hit people, Jacko has caught a couple in the head but so far I have been relatively unscathed! No doubt my time will also come….!
Ok, best go off and at least make myself look available for some activity – we’re still on watch until 9pm and it’s only 7pm.
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