Firefly, 14 December 2001
14° 05N 60° 57W
Distance to St Lucia 0 nm

Don’t worry, you have not missed the final episode of the Firefly diary (no 18), the crew did.

It all started with that bet of a bottle of rum with Duncan. We finished at 07 59 30 local time (GMT – hours) on 13th December after a passage that I will from hereon insist took seventeen days (and a little bit). Duncan won and like all generous bet winners, once we were safely docked in Rodney Bay Marina he shared it around and like all good arrival parties, from then on, as they say, things went downhill and the matter of filing a final story was lost in a mist of rum punches, ice cold ‘Heinies’, hamburgers and the swapping of many tales.

Our final day at sea saw falling winds and an impatient crew. At least Stewart caught his final fish, a magnificent and very tasty yellowfin tuna so the crew were saved from the skippers tinned tuna and pasta bake and treated instead to fresh tuna steaks lightly fried in butter and garlic. Stewart would like to remind readers that if they would like the recipe, especially from ladies wanting to get in touch with a tall, good looking, boat owning and single man that they can contact him at ? no, sorry, he does not want that made public so all enquiries to Yachting World!

The last night at sea was not without its dramas when, for no apparent reason, the autopilot and instruments died and before I realised we performed a crash gybe. Luckily the preventer held, although in the gyrations that followed the JibBoom thrashed around, hooked under the heads hatch, ripped off its catch and cracked the glass. Once back on course we gybed our way to the north end of the island in ever-lightening winds and finished just after the sun rose and luckily for us Tim Wright was there to record the scene.

Since then it has not stopped raining which has put the dampers, literally, on the many odd jobs that need doing, not to mention the mammoth bow to stern clean and air.

My next job after writing this copy will be to write the overall account of Firefly’s ARC 2001 which will be published in February’s Yachting World, out in the third week of January 2002 – complete with pictures from the voyage.

This is Firefly and her crew, Andrew, Stewart and Duncan signing off. So long, and thanks for all the fish!