February 14, 2002 - Website up and counting down the days in anticipation of the trips launch date.

February 27, 2002 - Currently at Los Gigantes, Tenerife: All crew and supplies on board. Hoping to set off tomorrow.  “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we sail”

February 28, 2002 - Set sail today at noon as expected. Current position 27 56 N / 17 09 W.  Flukey winds between 5 and 25 knots. 76 degrees temperature, sunny.  As yet no incidence of seasickness

March 1, 2002 - Almost dead calm. Very little wind and what there is is in the wrong direction.
Keeping ourselves busy with projects: digital camera; mending Luis's glasses  (broken as he put his harness on last night); trying the cruising shute (similar to a spinaker) and then repairing the rip in the cruising shute after failed test; exercise routine in the gym area on the aft deck.
Joined about an hour ago by a school of dolphins. Great fun. See attached photos.
Our estimated arrival time at this speed is sometime next year. Everyone hoping for wind

Saturday 2nd March - 948pm GMT Position 25 17N 20 55W
Great weather today. Solid 15 Knot wind out of the North/North west. Lots of new gadgets working: water maker (phew...); ancillary generator (towed behind us); washing machine (phew...).  Making good speed and hopefully catching up on some lost time.

March 3, 2002 - Position at 7am (local time 8am GMT - we've crossed a timezone!!!) 24 39N, 21 36W
Some facts: at midnight (after 60 hours of passage) we had acheived an average speed of 4.6 knots (including our period becalmed on the first day). In the 23 hours prior to midnight we had acheived avg. speed of 6.2 knots - much better. We need to achieve 6 knots in the right direction to hit our 23 day target.
Current weather - very light winds. We'll have to have a third attempt with the cruising shute today. No real sign of the trade winds yet.
Other news: generator use less than expected (good); Matthew and Luis's beards not looking very convincing yet (bad); today, Luis intends to join the gym....

March 3rd, 2002 (update)- 6pm GMT Position 24 00 N 22 33 W Temperature 75 degrees Wind NNE Force 4
A splendid day with strong solid winds, we've made over 6 knots all day.
Activities:
- Brian and Luis experimented with celestial navigation (identifying latitude and longitude with an old fashioned sextant). With their early progress to date, they have been able to confirm that we are North of the Equator - we're hoping for something just a little more accurate tomorrow.
- M, BNM, Bob and Luis played bridge for the first time this afternoon. For Luis it literally was the first time, for the rest of us we just played as though it was our first time. Hopefully some of us will remember how to play again over the next few weeks.
- Luis joined the gym and did (see photos) 80 sit-ups (abdominales) and ten press ups (algo es algo)... and then he felt "seasick" - more tomorrow...

March 5th, 2002 - 00 39 GMT 22 25N 24 55W A great days sailing...
We made significant sail changes today - up until now we have been running cutter rigged with two foresails, the genoa and a staysail. Today, as the wind shifted we have been running before the wind with two boomed headsails, the cruising shute to port and the genoa to starboard. (see photo). The resulting motion is very comfortable and the boat speed very satisfactory.
News from the sextant celestial navegation team (Brian and Luis) - they can now confirm that we are not only north of the equator but also west of Greenwich - more updates tomorrow.
We have settled into a comfortable watch schedule: two watches (Luis and Brian, M and Bob, with BNM floating). We do three hour watches through the day and then two 4 and half hour watches at night: 9pm to 130am and 130am to 6am. We alternate each night and each person gets one night off in four as BNM alternates. The night off implies sleeping from 9pm to 6am - fantastic. We have completed one cycle of five nights now and are pretty happy with the program.
More tomorrow...

Wednesday 6 March - 04:05GMT 20 41 N/ 26 52W
Interesting passage decisions today (Tuesday). After a long run on Monday with the boomed twin headsails (genoa and cruising shute), early Tuesday am the wind shifted to the East. We had to decide whether to alter our heading with the wind (and effectively head West) or continue head south/southwest. We decided that we wanted to be firmly south of 20N before heading west.  Turning too early runs the risk of not being solidly in the Tradewinds.
So we changed our sails back to the cutter rig with genoa and staysail and went onto a starboard tack for the first time in the trip.
Chaos ensued as everything that had found a comfortable home on the boat used to a port tack suddenly all lurched to the other side of the boat - kettle (empty); recently prepared salad dressing (full); wine glasses (multiple - full) etc
Of course, our celestial navegation team has provided critical data input into our decision making......they now have us positioned in the Atlantic, some 700+ miles from Tenerife (six days at about 120 miles a day...)

Supplies status
Fresh foods beginning to reach limits but we've had wonderful meals with
fresh produce from Tenerife - of particular note: avocados, melons, canaries
potatoes. Lettuces are lasting longer than expected, celery less.
Should have bought more of....
- milk
- chorizo (spanish sausage)
- red wine (see tack change above)
Should have bought less of...
- beer (despite pretty high consumption levels)
- tonic water
- cereal (see milk above)
more tomorrow...

Wednesday 6 March - 20:15 GMT 19 45 N / 28 22 W
Comfortably crossed 20N so have started to add more West to our course. This of course involved major sail changes which took much of the morning. The main addition was adding a "snuffer" to the cruising shute. This is a sleeve for the sail that helps to launch the sail, stays at the top of the mast while the sail is open and can be drawn down to sheath the sail very quickly in the event of sudden strong gusts - it resembles a giant dinosaur condom....
We played a good deal of bridge this afternoon (see photos). Luis continues to express disappointment that it does not involve more lying like a similar Spanish card game but is doing very well: today he bid and made his first three no trumps (game) contract.
A note on supplies: after publicly registered grievances on the website yesterday around our critical red wine situation, the skipper (BNM) appeared today from his cabin with a cache of red wine that he had mysteriously "forgotten" - crisis over - great leadership skills... wonder if he can find any milk back there....
More tomorrow...

Thursday 7 March - Written 0526 GMT, Friday 8th March 17 36N 30 03W
An interesting 24 hours....
Around 4am yesterday we were effectively becalmed. We waited for a few hours and motored for a few hours - it was no consolation to us that according to the wind charts we had less than a 1% probability of being becalmed - and
then decided we needed better weather info to decide what to do. We called the Met Office in England who said they couldn't help until we explained to them that they did have a service ("No, no, no - we give you money, you give us information..."). Anyway, they put us through to Wilfred in Gibraltar who was able to confirm that we were becalmed. He also allowed us to tease out of him the information that we needed - ie, south of 18N we should find
Force 4 NE, West of 40W Force 5-6 NE. So we decided to motor effectively 100 miles south to find the promised wind. This implies using up 25% of our fuel available for motoring.  
Interestingly, motoring gave us a great break after 7 pretty hard days sailing. We dozed, read (M reading Winston Churchill, Luis reading Don Quixote), tried more celestial navigation (see photo), played bridge and had a splendid lunch and dinner. It was such a good day that we are considering planning a similar rest day in about seven days time...
Around 2am, after 15 hours of motoring (and a few hours of cursing Wilfred), we found that he spoke the truth. At around 17 40N we have found the promised NE Force 4. We've killed the motor and are now making better than 5 knots with the twin headsails...

So, 7 days in, 1000 miles traveled, 2000 miles to... and a pretty
reasonable chance of doing it within our 23 day target..

more tomorrow...

Saturday 9 March - 00 26 GMT 16 49N 31 31W 
Brief update today... 
Wilfred spoke the truth - great progress today with NE Force 4/5.
Other excitement - following BNM's success in magicing up red wine, Bob, not to be outdone, has found another cache of milk - so we can have cereal again - hooray.... 

More tomorrow... 

Update for Saturday 9 March - written 03:42GMT, 10 March 16 24N, 33 38W
A pretty good 24 hours sailing...
We crossed another time zone (although it took us over a day to realize!)  Changing the hour meant that yesterday it was lighter at the beginning of the 6am watch. We took advantage of this to get our daytime sail set up (we normally reduce sail a little at night) three hours earlier than usual - so by 7:30am we were all set and didn't have to touch the sails again for the day (I think at last we have found "the wind of our ancestors")
So we had a pretty quiet day.  The celestial navegation team had a triumph and demonstrated that the GPS was wrong by only about 3 miles! Otherwise, we napped (see photos), played bridge and took it pretty easy.

We shifted onto a beam reach for the night with cruising shute and main.  We've come to the conclusion that two major sail changes a day is about right - enough to keep us interested but not too much work. We are now on our course and heading directly to St Lucia - only 1700 miles to go...

Seatern Roles and Responsibilities

In general we are a very happy and harmonious crew. It is however worth imagining five guys living together for three weeks in a space that would not be licenced for human habitation in Spain (according to Luis) Here's how we've divided up roles so that we keep from stepping on each other's toes (literally and metaphorically)

BNM (The Skipper)

Obviously with overall decision-making power and responsibility, other highly valued contributions include:
- chief clothes washer and drier (Mummy would be astounded)
- disc jockey (crew favorite: Mozart's clarinet concerto; crew hates: Val Doonigan; surprise hit: soundtrack from Abba musical "Mama Mia")
- secondary cook: sometime lunch preparation and elaborate three/four course dinners

Brian

With overall responsibility for sail trim and wear and tear, Brian spends most of his time on deck fixing "stuff" - eg worn split pins, loose screws, tow generator twisted up with flag (!?) etc Additional responsibilities include:
- chief washer up
- sometime bar tender
- leader of recently successful celestial navigation team
- generator, water maker etc
- trying to keep Luis on board

Bob

Two prime responsibilities: 1) radio and 2) vitalling and supplies. The first has been a challenge ("Southbound Two, this is British yacht Seatern, come in please..." repeated on average fifty times a day with no effect. One day Southbound Two (Herbie the weather guru) will speak back and Bob will be so surprised he won't be able to speak). The second role has been a triumph - the fresh food has lasted well into the second week. Bob knows where everything is stored. Recent finds include more milk, spanish olives, aluminum foil. Other roles include:
- primary foredeck assistant to Brian (specialty: dinosaur condom)
- one time dinner cook (melon and parma ham, bangers and mash, oranges with kirsch)
- new proud grandfather (Catherine Penelope)

Luis

Luis's principal role is to entertain us all at the bridge table ("They've cleaned us..."). Additional key responsibilities:
- secondary foredeck assistant (specialty: not falling in)
- sometime bar tender
- navigation consultant (particular expertise: celestial navigation and handheld GPS)
- one time dinner cook (Mercedes - take note): spanish omelet, filleted trout, Sevilla vegetables (see photo attached for proof)

Matthew

Main responsibilities include being primary cook and keeper of the website.  Ancillary roles include:
- fitness trainer (limited success)
- nutrition consultant (low carbs)
- helmsman during major sail changes
- napping expert (areas of expertise: new places to nap, how to nap at different windspeeds/seastates - Bob a key beneficiary)

Normal update tomorrow. Have a great weekend. We are...

Sunday 10 March  - 22:18 GMT 16 07N 35 21W

Brief update today (mainly because your faithful correspondent has been asleep all day)
Solid winds and good progress - averaging around 5.5 knots. ETA in St Lucia still looking good

Quality bird spotting today:
- Leach's Petrel
- Long-tailed Skua

Still no luck with Herbie (see photo): "Southbound Two, Southbound Two, this
is British yacht Seatern, over..."

Happy Mother's Day in the UK

More tomorrow....

Monday 11 March - 17:11GMT 16 07N 37 20W
They call this "blue water sailing" - its been glorious today - Force 4 pretty much all day, beam reach, averaging 6.6 knots over the ground. Fabulous blue skies lighting up deep rich blue seas... (very tempting to head to the Panama Canal and keep going...)

On a slightly more prosaic note, due to a surge of disbelief from viewers (readers?) of this website, I have enclosed a photo of the skipper and his laundry...

Crossed another time zone today although changed our watches about seven hours early by mistake. Funny how seven hours doesn't seem a particularly important length of time out here.

More later/tomorrow....

Tuesday 12 March - 04:45 GMT 16 16N 38 26 W

Well, it has been a day when it has been almost impossible to get anything done. The captain and crew of the good ship Seatern have been entirely distracted by the many entries and messages in the Website Guest Book. From Bob with "Oh, Sam and Jack like it" to Luis with "Its from my daughter Coral - in English..." or "Valerie thinks my beard is sexy..." its fair to say that the crew of the Seatern have been behaving like boys at breakfast at an English boarding school waiting for the housemaster to give out the mail.

If it weren't for the fact that 1) we have occasional sail changes to do and 2) it costs over $2/minute, I think we would be permanently on-line checking the guest book. We've reached an agreement now that we will download twice a day and save everything to the hard disk so that people can browse at their leisure - again and again and again.... (No one here is even the slightest bit homesick - promise...)

So - thank you all very much for your messages - we love them. (Oh, and James from Pittsburgh, your message did get through...)

More tomorrow....

Wednesday 13 March - 04:11 GMT 15 46N 40 31W

A very mixed day: started great, then very frustrating and looking much better now...

Bob and I had a very pleasant watch from 130am to 6am with decent winds. I'm not absolutely sure what exactly we're watching for as we haven't seen anything (land, ship, anything) for over ten days. Bob's face in the attached photo doesn't necessary look like he's had a pleasant time but I suppose by definition its difficult to look too cheery at 530am having been up all night. But it was a lovely dawn....
6am to 6pm was a very trying period. The winds shifted regularly from 5-15mph (perfect for cruising shute) to 20+ mph (too strong for cruising shute - perfect for staysail), out of the east (perfect for twin headsails) to out of the southeast (better for reaching...) All very frustrating, resulting in four major sail changes and lots of work for everyone (see photo)

Today was a "last of" day as well: last of the Pan Bimbo (sliced white bread - tomorrow Bob and Luis will try the bread making machine); last of the sliced cheese (the latter eaten with the Pan Bimbo at lunchtime in rather yummy toasted sandwiches); last yoghurts; last Spanish tortilla (until Luis makes some more)

At 6pm the wind started to rise to a solid Force 6. There was quite a debate at supper as to whether it was more difficult to cook (my point of view) or wash up (Luis's point of view) a Chinese stir fry in a Force 6.

And after supper it really began to blow. Currently we have Force 7 gusting 8 (Gail Force - 35knots - over 40mph). We are bowling along at 6+ knots under just the staysail and the genoa reefed to the size of a handkerchief... great....

More tomorrow...

Wednesday 13 March - 09:43GMT 15 41N / 41 02W

Just an update on the strong winds message from last night...

Winds have blown stable all night between Force 5 and 6. Because it is pretty much directly on our stern we have been making fairly consistently 5.5 to 6 knots. Very steady and comfortable. Haven't seen any sign of Force 8 for over six hours now...

More later...

Wednesday 13 March - 18:03GMT 15 29N 41 51W

A lovely lazy day... no sail changes (yet...) we've been on the same tack with the same sails since 6pm last night. Today we've mostly spent time catching up on sleep after yesterday's exertions (see attached photo from yesterday of Luis wrestling the cruising shute) and last night's exciting weather.

Bob just activated the bread machine so we'll see what happens with that.  I enclose a photo that attempts to give an update of the relative beard activity through Day 14. As you will see, lovely photo though it is, I think we are going to need some significantly enhanced photographic zoom capability to capture my efforts for posterity.

More tomorrow...

Thursday 14 March - 18:08 GMT 15 22N / 44 12W

A day of very steady sailing, one sail change and considerable progress.

Some highlights... (although you can get a vivid sense of the eventfulness of our days with these being the highlights...)

Bob produced the bread (see photo). It tasted really very good which was quite a miracle given that it required manual kneeding (for some reason the little paddle didn't work). It also came out a little shorter that your average sized loaf. But despite these limitations it tasted wonderful and was very filling (indeed each slice constituted a meal in itself). The absolutely best thing about it was the smell - fifteen days from land and the smell of fresh baked bread - quite an olefactory boost...

"Watch" took on a whole new meaning and level of responsibility last night when BNM and Brian spotted our first ship in over ten days! It appeared about nine miles off our port beam (distance confirmed by radar) and crossed about eight miles in front of us. Great excitement(active discussion of "Are we in the shipping lanes?" - after one ship!!!) Heightened vigilance for all...

Other notes: Bob has become an active gym member with a daily routine. Luis has pursued a fairly eclectic reading program (when not asleep): some continued Cervantes, a little bit of celestial navegation theory and studying a bridge guide (he's found playing with BNM as a partner so confusing that he has felt the need to get a slight more structured and consistent guide to the game). I've finished Winston Churchill, flirted briefly with Proust (too intense) and have moved on the Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged")

Well... 14 full days in, over 1800 miles covered - probably seven or eight days to go with an expected arrival in St Lucia Thursday or Friday next week.

More tomorrow...

Friday 15 March - 09:48GMT 15 16N / 45 58W

A tremendous last 12 hours with 20-35 knot winds (Force 5-7) and ever increasing seas...

About 6pm last night the wind got up. We thought it was just a squall but it has gone on since steadily at Force 6, gusting to gale Force 8. We have made tremendous progress: midnight to midnight 14 March we did 147 miles (versus previous best of 140) and since midnight, last six hours, we have done 39 miles over the ground (average 6.5 knots!!)

The seas have been relatively rugged, building to 10-15 foot waves, generally consistent out of NE but sometimes a little confused.

We are loving the speed although the motion is sometimes quite a challenge.  We had fish stew (hake, shrimps, octopus with vegetables in a parsley white sauce) for dinner last night with spoons out of bowls. Today's menu is likely to be fairly limited and I don't think we'll be making bread. I suspect gym will be cancelled today for everyone (Luis will be very disappointed).

More later...

Saturday 16 March 11:08GMT 15 07N / 48 40W

24 hours of wonderful sailing making great progress towards St Lucia.   Midnight to midnight we did 152 miles (previous best 147) and the GPS sitting in front of me says that we have 716 miles to go (2132 done)

Weather has been generally warm and sunny although the occasional squall normally brings rain as the front passes through. The sea remains pretty bumpy and waves have got up to 20+ feet. We had a chicken curry out of bowls last night followed by rhubarb and custard (all non-english people reading this are thinking "?????")

I think night watches deserve mention. I outlined before the basic five night routine that each individual has: one night 900pm to 130am, up at 6am; next night 6pm to 9pm, 130am to 6am; repeat these two nights; then one "long night" (9pm to 6am sleep). Two things have become observable as the voyage has progressed: 1) the night watches are getting longer and longer 2) one's humour is highly correlated with length of time to next "long night".

As to the first phenomenon (long night watches): many approaches have been developed and adopted to try to make the time pass: Luis tries to listen to Wagner opera (but finds that sail changes tend to interrupt); Bob makes "Soup in a Cup" (but finds their principal distraction to be the length of time it takes to wash up the unmixed congealed concentrate stuck to the mug - can't complain: it takes up time...); Brian initiates sail changes (see Luis's opera above) - but the overall favoured approach is sleeping on watch. This started off with a little bit of relay napping mid watch to now almost continuous relay napping with some overlap. We've found and concluded that the most reliable way of making the night watch pass quicker is to sleep through it. Percent of total night watch asleep has gone from almost to well over 50% (and continues climbing...) - I hope the Skipper doesn't read this....

As to the second phenomenon ("the long sleep"), there is not much to comment apart from the almost "other worldly" glow adopted by whoever is getting the long sleep that night. Brian particularly displays an almost nirvana-like state of contentment in the 12 hours prior to his long sleep. This lasts for about 30 minutes after he wakes up as well, until he realizes that it's a full five days until his next "long night".

Turns out that the gym did open briefly yesterday: sit-ups and press-ups in Force 6 to 7 with 15-20 foot waves require some level of concentration. You will observe from the attached photos that life harnesses were obligatory gym kit.

The crew remains in good spirits: Bob is doing a four hour bread bake today (which gives BNM the opportunity to do major washing and drying while the generator is on - which he's very excited about...). Luis continues studying hard - he's reading the chapter in his yachtmaster book about storms at the moment after a quite exciting dawn watch.  And Brian is trying to put a brave face on the fact he's just woken up from his "long sleep" (we're still in the 30 minute period...)

And it's my turn for the "long sleep" tonight....

Cheers

Saturday 16 March - 23:42GMT 15 07N / 50 01W

Sensory Overload

The noon watch today was challenged by a double sighting - two different sightings at the same time - it was almost too much to process after almost two weeks of seeing absolutely nothing.

The first sighting was a freighter about six miles off (more muttering of "sea lanes" etc etc). And while the freighter was still in sight, I and Luis, almost together, spotted a large whale in the water close to us. The whale was about 6 metres in length, black on top with two white flashes on its stomach. (Tommy and Charlie - please bring your whale book to St Lucia for a specific identification of whale type). We weren't sure initially if it was a whale or a shark but we figured that if it was a whale it would have to come up for air. And it did... very beautiful - we got great views of its head, back and tail within 20 metres of the boat. After some time of admiration the whale still seemed to be quite interested in the boat and the following options passed through our mind: does the whale want to:
- 1) shadow us a bit and then move on, or
- 2) eat the generator we were towing, or
- 3) have sex with us (stories of boats losing their rudders to mating whales large in our minds), or
- 4) sink us (my mother-in-law had been kind enough to buy me a book before I left called "Survive the savage sea" written by a family of four who survived 37 days in a raft having had their 50 foot sail boat sunk by a family of killer whales)

Luckily the whale chose the first option, treating us to some further beautiful sightings before taking off. And we returned happily to our rather good bacon sandwiches made with Bob's fresh bread.

Otherwise a fabulous day's sailing, averaging over 6 knots with the wind on the stern - I think it may be a couple of days since we last changed the sails.

Have a great weekend.... 

Update for Sunday 17 March - Written Monday 18 March 11:45GMT 14 46N / 53 26W

This will be a pretty short write-up for a pretty lazy day. After 3 days of being thumped around with Force 6-8 and 15-20 foot waves, the wind dropped to a Force 4 and gradually the sea began to settle. We were very happy to let the boat speed drop and have a bit of a rest day (very like our motoring day a week or so ago). The sails needed very little attention, the motion became a lot more comfortable and we were all able to relax.

The accompanying photos give some idea of how the crew of the Seatern spent their time - some contrast between different ideas of how to pass a perfect Sunday afternoon: Bob (in the gym); Brian (reading his book about the PC industry) and Luis (studying bridge)

Luis prepared us another triumphant tortilla this evening ("es una obra de arte")

Today, Monday, the wind is very much the same but we've put up more sail to try to take full advantage of what there is.

2412 miles gone, 435 miles to go - St Lucia Thursday or Friday. Yesterday we had a session looking at the pilot books and guide books for St Lucia to start getting excited about our imminent landfall.  I must say the Pitons do look beautiful.

Cheers

Update for Monday 18 March - written Tuesday 19 March 03:44GMT 14 25N / 54 47W

Another quiet day with pretty good sailing. Wind Force 3/4 out of E / ESE. Great condition for the cruising shute and the boomed genoa.

I spent some time today thinking about pleasures in store when we get to St. Lucia. I'm particularly looking forward to my first Diet Coke (as far as I am aware we have no products on board from the Coca Cola Company...) and my first cigar (the second one will probably be pretty good too...) - I unfortunately finished my last cigar about 2000 miles ago.

This train of thought led me to speculate what other members of the crew could be looking forward to. I'm pretty sure BNM will be excited about having unlimited access to diesel again and will probably want to go motor around abit, just because he can. Brian will probably be excited about a new, shore-related set of things to tinker with (shore lines, fresh water, power lines etc). I'm not sure what Bob will be looking forward to, but I'm fairly sure that Luis will be particularly enthusiastic about being able to perform basic bodily functions into receptacles that don't move and are located in rooms bigger than one square meter.... I think we're all quite intrigued to see the impact of the motion after three weeks afloat (maybe the receptacles won't move but we will?) and the idea of a stationary bed and a bath is quite fascinating....

As a first mention in a category that will probably expand somewhat over the next few days, the category being: your log writer eating his words....despite what appeared to be huge quantities of beer (see earlier under "items we should have bought less of") we have been able to accomplish the great feat of reducing our total beer inventory to two small cans. (It will be interesting to see on what basis these get distributed tomorrow...)

Apologies for what may appear to be rambling, unconnected thoughts... been at sea for a long time now....354 miles to go....

More tomorrow....

Wednesday 20 March - Day 20 - 07:44GMT 13 38N / 57 26W

Another super day sailing - cruising shute and genoa in Force 4 Easterly. Midnight to midnight trip progress 139 miles.

A pretty good day really - through extensive promotion to the rest of the crew of the benefits of gin and tonic, I was able to end up with one and a half of the two beers left - pretty good (and pretty generous on their part). We are down now to lots of Gin and Tonic, Vermouth (uggh...) and three bottles of white wine (oh, and a couple of bottles of champagne - although I dare say we'd better save those for a momentous event, like arriving in St Lucia...)

Finished my second book today. It has been an enjoyable selection. With the Churchill book you get a real sense of the essence of greatness in the British. With Ayn Rand, you get a tremendous feel for what makes America great. Maybe I'll go back and have another go at Proust (perhaps on my second attempt I'll discover the essence of greatness in the French...!?)

Lots more discussion of arrival. From the distance remaining (198 nautical miles) and our speed (average around 5.8 knots) we'll probably arrive off the southern tip of the island sometime early Thursday afternoon. Our plan at this stage is to anchor in Vieux Fort for Thursday night, sail early Friday morning past the Pitons and arrive in Rodney Bay (our final destination) around lunchtime.

Lots more bridge today. Had the chance to expose Luis to the delights of slam bidding. Unfortunately, Luis and BNM got a little carried away and ended up two down, doubled on a six NT contract ... (a valuable "learning experience" according to the skipper). Ongoing debate at the moment as to whether you would expect the cards to balance out over three weeks or whether over three weeks the cards could systemically favour one pair. Result of the debate is more than academic: if we can agree that the cards balance out, it looks likely that Bob and I will end up fairly significant winners. If not, we'll have to end up being charming and gracious and concluding that our opponents had "bad luck".

Celestial navegation team continue to claiming tremendous progress on the calculations they have been working through (literally for hours) I can't vouch for the validity or relevance of their work. All I know is that they are still doing calculations to establish position of sights taken on 14 March.

More tomorrow....

Update for Wednesday 20 March - 23:56GMT 13 40 N / 59 04W 

Rapidly approaching our destination, another good day sailing... 

The dawn watch discovered a boarding attempt by a school of flying fish this morning as the sun rose. There were over 2 dozen dead fish on the deck. Imagine their surprise, leaping out of the ocean, to meet the "Seatern" in full flight. One of them actually found its way through the hatch onto the navegation table. We have been quite interested throughout the trip in trying to make sushi from flying fish (suggested to us by "Survive the Savage Sea" from my mother-in-law) but have not yet been able to get big enough fish, fresh enough to try to "cook" - pickle in lemon. We may be running out of opportunities... 

At lunch, as supplies run down, the chef was encouraged to provide Ambrosia Creamed Rice as a pudding. This was traumatic for the chef (possibly the most carbohydrate intense food on board - see photo) but was gleefully received by the "children of the blitz" generation (BNM, Bob and Brian) who insisted on having their Creamed Rica with strawberry jam. I think there is something Pavlovian about their reaction to something that almost all other people would regard as inedible. 

In the category of your website commentator eating his words, the celestial navegation team pulled off a remarkable coup today - with two sights taken today at 8am and noon they were able to compute our position to within 5 miles longitude and 2 miles latitude - congratulations to Brian and Luis... 

More feedback for your website commentator - conversation shifted this evening at dinner to my more egregious spelling mistakes: apparently spinaker is spelt "spinnaker" (not in Spanish...), vitalling is spelt "victualling", and shute is spelt "chute"... apologies all round for these and other mistakes (all in the interests of on-time relevant copy....) 

Another evening of bridge (see photo). We are currently 102 miles from St Lucia and hopefully tomorrow we will be able to play bridge at anchor in Vieux Fort. We are currently passing Barbados 35 miles off our port bow (how exciting.... land....) 

More tomorrow... 

Thursday 21 March 13:10GMT - 09:10 local time 13 39N / 60 26W

Was woken this morning by the "25 knot squall alarm clock" - all hands on deck to get the cruising chute down - a bit of struggling but really the condom worked very well, the foredeck crew now very accomplished in its application. Everything calmed down a little, we returned to our desired course and set the sails with the main out to port and the genoa boomed off the starboard bow. I retired below to prepare some scrambled eggs and bacon (on toast from fresh bread) in order to restore a little order to the day.

Soon after breakfast, at 8am local time Bob cried out "Land Ho!" as he sighted St Lucia in the distance off the starboard bow for the first time.... wanted to get the news on the website ASAP....

More later, hopefully from the tranquility of our anchor in Vieux Fort - perhaps a little swimming this afternoon...

Thursday 21 March - 10pm Local Time

Very brief update... (mainly because we have discovered what appears to be an unlimited source of beer and cigars...)

Arrived in St Lucia - anchored off the Pitons - beautiful

Found a nice local chap to moor us from a banana tree and we're all set...

See attached photos: 1) Land Ho 2) Flying the St Lucia courtesy flag 3) approaching our anchorage...

Final installment tomorrow: 1) Concluding Thoughts 2) Lots of data 3) Crew Reflections....

**Background**    **Crew (excerpt from above)**

**Check Out the Pictures**    **Actual Progress Map**

**Guestbook - Please sign in.**    **Check Out the Schedule**

**Check Out the Route**