St. Lucia

Lisa and Jay on the boat steps, showering before heading off to the airport and New Zealand.

Jay is back to North Sails and Lisa is starting her first job, assisting with external film projects for Unitec in Auckland.

The boat feels so empty with them gone now, but I think they enjoyed the experience of sailing across the Atlantic with us, and hope they will come and sail with us again.

Approaching St Lucia is the spectacular sight of the famous Pitons. The island is fertile and very green, not surprising considering the amount of squally rain showers we have experienced since we arrived.

No more lugging heavy bags of fruit and veggies back to the boat. Gregory visits each day to the boats!

The girls in the bar again!

Great to catch up with Gaby and Shaun on Tabasco Jazz in Rodney Bay Marina and enjoy some good food and wine together.

The crossing

Christmas Day was calm enough to cook some roast ducks and have a few glasses of wine too!

Another one of those dreaded squalls, creeping up on us from behind, time to shorten sail and close the hatches. Easier said than done when flying a spinnaker though, we decided to snuff it during the night and choose a lighter sail that was easier to reef.

En route we were visited by a whale, can't tell you what type though. It stayed with us for over an hour and rolled over several time to take a good look at us.

Snorkeling around one of the wrecks in the Bay near the boat was great fun.

Diving with the turtles in Carlisle Bay, they home in on the people boats, where the crew feed them pieces of fish, almost by hand.

Caribbean

5th Jan

Sitting on the deck of the Barbados Yacht Club, sipping a Mountgay and Orange and trying to upload photos of the crossing, without luck.

So sorry, no photos this post.

Had a great crossing with lots of wind. About 2150 miles which we covered in 12 days. Hit a scary top speed of 18 knots, surfing down a wave, but averaged about 7.5 knots Flew the symmetrical spinnaker most of the time, which was great day and night, although we did have to watch for squalls!

Enjoying the turquoise blue water, diving wrecks and swimming with turtles, and the rim is good too!

5th Jan