Monday evening at 21:18 (I think) local time we crossed the finish line in fine style. We motor sailed in most of the day since the winds were 6-8 knots and dead downwind, and were able to witness a magnificent sunset over the island. It's very mountainous from the sea so it was wonderful. The moon came up and we turned off the motor for the last 90 minutes as the wind freshened and we went from downwind, gibed, reached and close hauled into the mark. Funny having to haul in the main sheet and jib sheets after 3,685 miles of downwind sailing. In nicer winds we had a very respectable 6-7 knots of boat speed, navigating our way in the dark around the north end of the island, down the west side, around Pigeon Island to the finish line outside Rodney Bay. Gorgeous gentle sail and we stuffed the finish line at the pin end in fine style!

More later. It's now Tuesday evening. We slept Monday night in calm waters at the dock, (after a few libations of course), spent the day cleaning up the boat and exploring the marina facilities (which are amazing) and are heading to a cocktail party and dinner tonight. Tomorrow I"ll post info on our finish results, and later in the week close with some thoughts of the whole adventure.

Just got to read many of your blog comments. Tim and I have checked into a nearby hotel for shore leave, Tim's napping so I"ll wake him up shortly and show the comments to him. I would have done it sooner but my laptop has died so I"m back to using the computer at the hotel.

If you would like a quick picture of the Marina see
http://www.igy-rodneybay.com/index.php?gclid=CKbqx6Lk7KUCFUbf4AodbHtEmw


Thanks again so much for following along, bye for now, gotta get the laundry in quickly, it's getting really ripe around here.

Monday noon and we are motoring towards St. Lucia from the south east, only 52 nautical miles to go, so it looks like an arrival at about 9:00 pm tonight. Yahoo! Gorgeous sunny day, very few clouds and obviously light winds otherwise we would be sailing, but that's not to be the case. We already know how to bob around in light winds and have no inclinations to do more of it, so on goes the iron genny.

Amazing sunset last night, amazing sunrise this morning and an amazing day, although it is getting hotter. For the past few hours we have had an extra passenger. A little bird about the size of a sparrow who sits in the cockpit and sleeps. Every once in awhile the bird will move to a new position and sleep some more, sometimes down below in the cabin. Will dutifully goes down with a propane barbecue lighter that he uses as a perch. The bird is quite happy to climb on the perch and be escarted back out to the cockpit. Tim has pictures we will share.

Speaking of which, Tim is doing fine even though I have not been able to convince him to write for the blog. But his pictures! (Those of you who know him will know exactly what I mean). When we get to land, get some rest and get decent internet I'll load up a selection of his work documenting the passage highlights. Not to be missed, and then the blog will be more complete. Tim talks in pictures, I tend to talk in words, I guess.

Fresh cinnamon buns just coming out of the oven, steaks from the freezer for dinner tonight, and then back to civilization, so to speak. (I have a feeling I'm going to be re-examining the inferences of that particular phrase). To each of you who have followed our progress, thank you and have a marvelous day! Each is clearly special. We deeply miss all of our family and friends and so look forward to being reunited in one form or another.

Just got the call from the cockpit, Land ho!!!!! at 12:59 local, gotta go see, more later.

---------- radio email processed by SailMail for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

It's Sunday afternoon at 4:30pm local time, sunny with light winds and we continue to sail on. And on. And on :-) Amazingly the start of our fourth week at sea! Funny how across a 3,000 plus nautical mile journey all of your attention, energy and emotion get's focused on the last 200 nautical miles. Strange how that works, it's less than 5% or so of the total, but gets by far and away all of your attention.

We are currently sitting 75 nautical miles directly east of Barbados. Weird, but appropriate for this voyage since we seem to have sailed every other corner of the southern Atlantic we might as well see this part of the ocean too. It's not as bad as it sounds because our course to St. Lucia is WNW for about 160 nautical miles. Nonetheless, silly thoughts of stopping in to Barbados for drinks and duty free abound. Not.

It's been a tough couple of days because the winds have died right off and the downwind direction is as about as unfavorable as can be. Without the spinnaker our only hope was strong to very strong winds and a favorable direction. We got that for 6 or so days but it hasn't happened for the last 3 and will not for the next 1 or 2. Oh well. The showers, fresh linens, air conditioning and 'personal space' will have to wait. We stay focused on trying to get the best we can out of the winds and seas at hand, working little puffs or changes in direction for every possible mile. Riding the odd squall to get further towards St. Lucia. Gybe, gybe, gybe, gybe, gybe. But we just cannot get the boat pointed straight at at St. Lucia so we sail slowly back and forth. Our lowest VMG to the target across 24 hours was 95 nautical miles made good. Not fun.

Each morning we would optimistically wake up with 'only 3 days left', but each day we said the same thing and the next day it was 'only 3 days left'. All this as our expectations from previously very good velocity made good (VMG) i.e. 175 to 195 fail to be taken into account. For the last several days it seems like it's been 'only 2 days left'. We are convinced each day someone is moving St. Lucia farther east. Stop that!

Tonight we are planning a special dinner, because it's possible this might, just might, be our last night at sea. So all of the good things left in the pantry are coming out. Smoked salmon, slivered onions, capers, triscuits, couscous, shrimp, saskatoon berry jam, beer and wine. That will help our mood as we try to keep the impatience and frustration with the arrival date/time at bay. So far everyone is holding up remarkably well.

Wish us well on our lst 24 to 36 hours. More news later.

It's easy to write this blog to give the impression that everything is fun and games, and to a very large extent it has been and continues to be that way, But there's another side to the adventure that's much less glamorous and tests your strength, courage and attitude. The last 4 days have been like that.

On Monday. as Peter describes in his blog. we blew up the kite, our spinnaker. It's been our bread and butter sail getting us all over the Atlantic to find a great approach to St. Lucia where we could try to finish as best as possible. It really let's us sail very fast downwind in up to 25 or so knots, and without it all of our hopes went out the window. Wouldn't you know it but from that point on we have had nothing but relentless 25-30 knots of wind, and in the best possible direction. We are flying along with a double reefed main, and a double reefed genoa, on downwind angles. That's the good part, the bad part is that it's like being in a washing machine on agitate, and we have been that way for 4 days now. The boat is rolling, rocking and yawing. About every 2 seconds you get thrown violently one way or the other and lurch from place to place. Even sleeping is incredibly difficult because you are getting tossed every which way in your bunk. Getting to the bathroom just to brush your teeth is a chore. Step, step lurch; step step lurch, lurch the other way, grab for something to hold on to; step, step lurch. More bruises.

Under straightforward conditions it wouldn't be too bad, i.e. steady wind directions and long rolling seas, but it's far from that. The seas are choppy, steep, come from all directions at the same time, and sometimes are quite violent. We spent an entire day going through squall,after squall, after squall. They are a treat in themselves. The wind picks up another 5 to 15 knots, changes direction, it rains, you get tossed around some more and then another one comes rolling in. The storms in the Atlantic and the squalls have conspired to make the seas downright ugly. It takes enormous amount of energy to move around, to sail the boat and to keep going. Both physical and mental energy. It's very draining as we each grow more and more tired. But we think there is only one more day of this left and our spirits are pretty good. We have made incredible speed and progress towards St. Lucia, and have had between 185 and 196 nautical miles made good to the destination each day. Quite amazing when after we blew the kite you could have put us in the depression wing of the nearest hospital.

Driving the boat (helming) in these conditions is akin to dancing with an elephant. The boat is 20,000 to 25,000 lbs rocketing along at 8 to 11 knots down 3-5 meter very steep and confused seas. The water is roaring by, you need to be punching the boat around to stay on course, out of the water and to prevent rounding up or doing other very nasty things. And that's the same as making an elephant dance, and dance quickly. When does the dance end? Whenever the elephant wants it to end, so hopefully on Saturday the winds start to die down. We shall see. We have had to modify our watch schedule to keep the best drivers on because they are difficult conditions.

Oh yes, the other obstacles are flying fish. Last night, pitch black, one hits Tim in the back of the head and drops into Will's lap. Guess you had to be there but it was pretty funny. Our spirits are good, the end is in sight, we are doing well, but make no mistake. It's tough going at times, and not always fun and games. And strangely perhaps, each in our own way, we are enjoying the sacrifice, and dancing with the elephant.

595 Nautical Miles to go.

Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. and we are all starting to feel a lot better after our exodus to the far southern reaches of the North Atlantic. Wow, have we ever covered a lot of ground. Peter has charted our daily positions on his Atlantic passage chart and the projections, with the widened southern latitudes, makes the route track look like a great big “U”.

We are currently making some great progress, since the trade winds have finally setup, and it’s been to our advantage. Yesterday we were able to sail about a 150 degree wind angle direct to St. Lucia on our asymmetric “kite” (Very similar to a genaker, or cruising spinnaker, just cut less flat for more depth and speed). What a treat that was. We knocked off 175 nautical on the distance to finish measurement in the last 24 hours. That’s huge for us. Currently sailing in 19-22 knot winds and doing well over 8 knots, albeit no longer direct to St. Lucia but a great course to set us up for the last few days. Tim was on the helm about an hour ago and got the current surfing speed record, 12.5 knots.

It’s been an interesting night. Two sail changes, some really difficult squalls and nasty choppy seas, but it looks like we have just cleared a big ugly squall line and have good weather ahead, possibly even with good winds. And that would be nice. Over the last several days we have been coming to grips with anywhere between 8 and 12 days left, and that’s after more than 2 weeks at sea already. We are conserving water at this point and being very careful with consumption. But if we can stay on course, and get anywhere close to the most recent measurements we will be closer to the 8 day mark than the 12 day. That would be cool.

Time to buckle down and knock of the remaining 1,138 miles.

Written Saturday afternoon at 16:39 local. We are two time zone across, so it's 18:39 UTC.

For the first day since the trip began we have actually sailed all day straight towards St. Lucia. If you follow this blog, or Peters, or the ARC website you will see that this years ARC is plagued with bad luck weather wise. No consistent, strong and regular trades. True for us too, so after two weeks at sea this is the first day we were able to point and sail directly at St. Lucia in semi-decent winds. Supposed to strengthen and stay in that direction over the next 2 days at least. We hope.

Last year the average passage was 16 or so days. This year it looks like it's going to be way higher than that, could be 21, 24 or longer. As the average! We are all well and in good spirits. There are some things you can't do anything about and the weather is at the top of the list so we are all working on not letting it bother us. So far so good.

Tomorrow we will hit our arbitrary half way point. It's the 37th Meridian (longitude line) that is exactly half way between Las Palmas and St. Lucia. Our selection of it as the half way has nothing to do with which course you take to get to it, or how long you take to get there or do the other half, it's simply the line on the globe that's half way between the lines that go through the Canaries and St. Lucia. So we have a party planned and their are presents! I'll post descriptions and pictures when we get to St. Lucia.

We are currently looking at 9-12 days left to go. See Peter's blog for more details, and other fun stuff we have been up to. www.sailblogs.com/member/timewarp1

P.S. it's 85 degrees F and sunny out (again), and 90 degrees F in the cabin. Dolphins visit every day. Wish you were here! Oops, gotta run, fish on the hook! Sushi and fresh fish for the next couple of days ...