Yacht Wishing For The Moon

Dearest Readers,

Well now, dolphins jumping clear over the boat, waves the height of houses with sharks in them swimming past our heads, jelly fish the size of cars, bolts of lightning and deep cracks of thunder, torrential rain, winds that blew the hair off our heads and eating the last of the ship's biscuits and weevils. These are just some of the things we have not seen or experienced today, but I thought you would like to believe that we are confronting great danger and hardship like the boys' own adventurers we pretend to be. True, we had a shower of rain just heavy enough to get us to move the cockpit cushions under cover for a few minutes, and we had a family of dolphins which came to say Good Morning before disappearing, and the wind is a little brisker than it has been for the past few days, but otherwise the reality is that life aboard the good ship WFTM continues much as before. Noon to noon today was 157 miles.

I have important news for the dozens of women who we imagine are even now making their way to Heathrow in order to catch the plane to Barbados so that they can be in Bridgetown in time to greet us on our arrival with champagne, kisses and garlands of flowers. Our landfall is no longer Barbados, but Admiralty Bay, Bequia, so please make your way there instead! This change of plan has come about because we have read in the Pilot Book that entry formalities are more tiresome and formal in Barbados than Bequia, because Richard has very generously agreed to arrive in Bequia and then get the inter-island flight back to Bridgetown, and because (through the kind work of Sarah C-R) we know that there is space on that plane for Richard. So, Bequia it is. As things stand, we expect to pass fairly close to the south of Barbados about 0400 (present local) in the morning. In fact, we shall have to put clocks back another hour by then so it will, I think, be 0800 in London. We may even pass close enough to be able to pick up phone signals! Texts more welcome than emails because of the difficulty and cost of internet access. ETA Bequia is currently thought to be about midnight on Thursday.

I was thrilled to get a Comment from my grandson, Frederick, asking how we know we're going in the right direction. Well, Frederick, the owner of the boat, who is called Len, is very clever with that sort of thing but he gets a little help from the GPS system which he has on board. This is an electronic device much like a Satnav in a car which receives signals from satellites in the sky and which you can then use to show your position on a map - which on a boat is called a chart - and you then use a compass to tell you which direction to sail in to get to your destination.

We continue to eat exceptionally well. Dinner last night was tagliatelle with a smoked salmon sauce. Lunch today, a freshly made ham, onion, pepper, Emmental and spinach quiche with a Greek salad. Supper tonight will be a melange of lovely leftovers from earlier meals. For the past few evenings Len has made a delicious non-alcoholic fruit cocktail which we drink in the cockpit while watching the sunset. It's a special time of day: the heat has gone out of the sun and the air is cool enough to be refreshing and there is a general feeling of calmness.

I know that Richard and Johnny can't wait to have a swim as soon as we get to Bequia. The latter's hopes of swimming exactly in mid-Atlantic came to nothing: those darned Health and Safety people get everywhere. The sea water we use to shower in each morning is so lovely and warm that they will probably be swimming for ages.

We have been very fortunate indeed to be having such good conditions, but there is still time for them to change and slightly stronger winds are forecast for tomorrow. Over 200 boats left the Canaries on the ARC rally at about the same time as us. They are sailing directly to St Lucia, not going via Cape Verde, so they are many hundred miles north of us but we believe that they have had contrary winds and thunderstorms, so their passage may well have been rather difficult.

One shouldn't, I know, start paragraphs with "I", so my apologies for that. One will try to do better next time! - which will almost certainly not be until we have reached Bequia. The over 60s remain in good heart. One of us is looking forward to a cold beer and possibly even a rum punch, but please don't tell anyone! As I write, it's just 188 miles away.

As always, lots of love, best wishes, kind regards etc which we shall leave you to hand round as you think appropriate.