170nm covered in 24hours. Average speed 7.08 knots

Position at 1200UTC 26 Nov 09 was 21.15N 24.24W

It’s Wednesday and that means a full English breakfast. Watch patterns, however meant that we took a Hobbit approach to breakfast and Sallyanne cooked up porridge with a coulis made from kiwi and banana, both of which are getting ripe a little too quickly.  Any prospective ARC boats reading this should know that odd mix worked.  Steve then judged that second breakfast was in his culinary range so took the lead rustling up the eggs, bacon, tomato, beans and toast which was wolfed down with relish by a hungry crew in the cockpit under a glorious sky.  That set us up for the main task of the day which was to figure out what to do with the Parasailor that had taxed us yesterday.

Before we could begin, however, we were interrupted by the welcome sound of the fishing line reeling out from the back of the boat.  Mark fought heroically against the struggles of a 15″ Dorado which was swiftly dispatched in the cockpit.  Once we had filleted the fish we turned to the Parasailor. We had to get the whole 180m2 sail out of its 22m long sock, correct any twisting and then re-stuff it back in the sock.  We really needed a rugby pitch to do this but we had a 54 foot yacht!  We took the Head of the sail into the Heads at the front of the Cabin and laid it out through the length of the companionway to work in the cockpit.  After the whole crew worked through voluminous folds of sail we were satisfied and placed the sail back in the sail locker.

Later in the afternoon both fishing reels screamed sending Mark and Steve rushing to the stern. Both of our lures had snagged a Dorado each! Confidence is now high as we anticipate interesting recipes to serve our freshest of fish.   Mark had been marinating the first Dorado in the remainder of Sallyanne’s banana and kiwi coulis to which he had added curry powder garlic and lime.  This he cooked up for starter in the evening and it so worked!  (at time of writing; 1300 on Thu 26 Nov ASOLARE has landed her 4th Dorado!)

Enough of food and back to sailing, Peter our Skipper had been itching to get more sails out now that the wind had eased a little.  All hands to the bow and we deployed the Gennaker. Being much larger than the Jib we can capture lighter airs as we have now altered course to 253o and are heading directly towards St Lucia at approx 7 Knots.

STOP PRESS:  Clearly I am writing this at the wrong time…. a loud bang has sent all hands on deck….

Stephen & Crew