We are well and truly into the last few hours with 75 miles to run at this stage. The last 24 hours saw us cover 220 miles on the log and 209 miles on distance to go. Ace is around 90 miles astern so unlikely to deprive us of a first over the line on Class A. Estimated arrival time is around 0300 hrs UTC which NZ time is late afternoon on Tuesday 11th, so our elapsed time will be around 13 days 15 hours and the total distance covered around 2700 miles, an average of over 8 knots.

Another quiet 24 hours at sea, wind 17 -22 knots from ENE mostly, but moving through a 10 degree range all day. Basically have been sailing flat off for the 24 hours at 165T, gybed at 0600 hrs onto starboard which enabled us to lay directly through to the NE corner of the island of St Lucia. Sea a bit quieter today so helming a lot easier and making 8 - 10 knots all day long.

The mood on board is buoyant as we approach the finish, firstly because we will have completed in a very fast overall time (we had planned on 16 days which seems to be the norm) and are up with several of the larger yachts (60 - 80 feet) and secondly so we can increase the alcohol intake which has been very very modest overall given the sailing conditions we have faced, the famed rum punches are looked forward to. Our shore manager, Birgitta, unfortunately will arrive a few hours after we finish and reports to Goran talk of minus 20 at their home in Sweden plus plenty of snow. They are cruising with us now for a week or so. Bob Marley continued to make an appearance today - Goran says he does not like our music so maybe Abba will appear over dinner?

We did in fact gybe at the best time over night but thanks to yours truly it was something of an unplanned event. Fortunately the preventer held the boom midships by which time we were already starting to round up and then the preventer broke so the crash gybe was somewhat arrested. We do not know how it happened but somewhere along the way the bolt holding the front port leg of the pulpit has sheared off. Not a major more of a nuisance and overall we have suffered only a couple of pieces of very minor damage.

Everyone has worked hard and well to keep the boat moving as fast as possible 24/7 and Roly and Pat did a huge amount of preparation and planning regarding sail handling systems beforehand which has paid off. The passage from Cartagena to Las Palmas certainly provided the opportunity to review and discuss before we set off, A well worthwhile approach. The big red never got as much use as anticipated however the spinnaker pole was an essential piece of kit.

We have not yet sighted land although birds are making an appearance. No doubt the loom of St Lucia will be very evident once night falls We have 6 yachts ( 5 big ones and us) all converging on the finish over a two hour period from what we can see. Polina Star, a Russian owned Contest 62 is 6 miles abeam, cannot see any others at this stage.

We were surrounded by dolphins a few hours ago and they put on a great "welcome to the Caribbean" show for us. We will need to get a book on fish species to help us with identification - these were not large, speckled on top with pink undersides? Quite different from what we have around NZ.

Cheers
Pam & Keith