Disappointment and Beauty

The last 36 hours have been one of mixed emotions. Yesterday morning followed a night of some of our best sailing and then slowly the wind died until we had just 2 knots. Northern Child makes little progress in 2 knots. And for close to 7 hours we endured the pain. Then Christian made the difficult decision to put on the engine. We were in danger of not making it back for the Saturday flights and we could not afford to lose a day of no progress to target. It meant we were officially out of the racing division.

Disappointment tinged with understanding flowed through the crew. We motored in silence. One hour later we hit the wind we had expected and planned for all morning, it mounted until at 7 knots we switched off the engine having covered 9 miles. 9 miles that cost us our racing status.

Since then for the last 24 hours we have set a blistering pace with winds between 9 an d 14 knots helping Northern Child  to push on at 8 knots. We covered 190 miles in 24 hours, 120 of them towards our target St Lucia, now 1,930 miles away.

Last year Christian left Las Palmas and 30 miles south of the island he turned west and sailed direct to St Lucia, never making less than 120 miles towards target in any 24 hours. This year we have had to sail 700 miles south and one day we only made 2 miles towards target. It has been heartbreaking.

But speed feeds the soul and spirits are now high, we are pointing towards our destination, tight reaching at 270' and 8.5 knots.  Lucy served Rum Punch in celebration, Dirk the Dutchman caught a Dorade and we dined on sashimi starter followed by Pork Chops with apple sauce. Extraordinary!

As we changed watch at 18.00 a beautiful sunset formed, the sea has been majestic these last two days, an enormous slow swell causing us to rise up an up then gently lowering us down again. It's a bit like driving over the gentle Sussex Downs. No Dolphins tonight but shoals of flying fish at dusk, leaping out of the water and gliding for 30,40,50 yards before disappearing back into the waves.

On watch both at night and during the day a stillness sometimes descends on the crew and each of us gazes out at the horizon. We do not discuss the majesty and beauty of it all we just acknowledge it by our silence.



Sunset