Firefly, 12 December 2001
14° 50N 58° 57W
Distance to St Lucia 124 miles

Today there is a definite end of term feeling on board Firefly. With just over 120nm to go, two Needles to Cherbourgs, we are looking at an ETA sometime in the early hours, local time (GMT – 4 hours), tomorrow 13 December. It might not be our under 17 day target but, unless the wind deserts us, and the forecasts say it will not, it should be under 18 days.

Duncan and I have a bottle of rum bet on the finish time. If it’s before 0530, local, I win, after and he wins. In any event we have a rendezvous with photographer Tim Wright to picture us finishing which means we’ll probably have to jill around till dawn and then ‘re-finish’ for the camera.

Stewart still fishes in hope although both of them avoid discussing my promised supper if we catch nothing, which is a tuna and pasta bake. As we have now run out of milk and will make do with coffee creamer the result could be interesting.

Another casualty added itself to the breakages list last night, right in the middle of happy hour. Without warning the galley sink unit disappeared into the depths of the locker below. The unit, it transpires, is glued to the underside of the Corian worktop with no mechanical fastenings. Another job for St Lucia.

I have still not persuaded the others to let me publish their ‘first thing to do after arriving’ fantasies so this will probably have to wait till after the event and to the final episode of the Firefly ARC 2001 diary.