Happy Christmas from beautiful Bequia…. Yes, we made it to the Caribbean!!
After 17 days of “forward, backward, upward, downward over the Atlantic sea” (a nursery rhyme sung far too many times during the trip…) we arrived in St. Lucia. What a relief! It is now nearly 2 weeks since we arrived and I can honestly say, like child birth, the bad bits have been erased from the memory. The monotony of two and a half weeks at sea are now out of the mind and the few memorable bits are pasted together to form this epic picture- thank goodness for hindsight- at the time, on more than one occasion I vowed never to do it again and couldn’t comprehend why people would actually pay to do this!
To be part of the ARC was absolutely amazing- it was everything we hoped for… the hype in Las Palmas beforehand; the parties, the comraderie of the other boats and crew, the other families we met, children jumping off and on each other’s boats whilst the parents were frantically getting the boats sorted. I seemed to spend most of my time in Gran Canaria food shopping. It was ENDLESS! Shopping to feed everyone whilst we were there, shopping to feed us all on the crossing, shopping for the Caribbean (so expensive here), shopping for treats, shopping for Christmas… it was literally a full time job- walking to the supermarket, getting everything back to the boat, and the hardest part, finding room for everything once it was on board. There was a lot of chat about meal plans, fresh fruit and meat orders. It was a relief actually getting on the water and not having to go to the supermarket or think about what to buy. Everything we needed we had and amazingly I wrote a meal plan and stuck to it (apart from the the odd bonus fish supper!) It made cooking on board relatively stress free- if you don’t include the knives, boiling water and crockery careering up and down the work surfaces every few seconds. Making a cup of tea was dicing with death- it is hard to imagine- but pouring boiling water into 6 cups on a rocky, slanted surface (you can be sure everyone wanted a cup when offered) rummaging around for the milk in the fridge which is under a ridiculously heavy lid and then actually getting the hot tea to everyone wherever they were was virtually the most difficult task on the crossing. Actually, thinking about it, every tiny, little thing was hard- going to the loo, getting dressed, washing up… rocking from side to side all day, all night for 2 weeks on end is ridiculous!!! And you don’t get used to it.
It was Eliza’s birthday during the trip which we’d hyped up for a while- we’d be able to have a mid way party, I’d be a brilliant mother and organise a tea, cake and games- brilliant in theory- but the pressure of trying to make it into a lovely day for her was too much for me! I tried to make the cake she had asked for- I’d bought some special Spanish strawberry mousse icing, whipped cream, tinned strawberries… it was going to be amazing! But, half way through the assemble, a particularly big rogue wave managed to tip the whole tin of strawberry juice all over me- from head to toe. I lost my cool I’m afraid to say. I think I’ve cried more over birthday cakes than anything else since having children- and this was no exception. No tears, but very fed up… Suffice to say, Eliza did have a lovely day- even though the cake was a mess and tasted disgusting, the game of rumikub we gave her couldn’t be played because of the rolling and we couldn’t go outside because of the squalls the day was still all about her- and fortunately that was enough.
Other than the rolling, the trip was as good as I could have hoped. A fantastic girl, Elsa, joined us as our extra crew member and she fitted in brilliantly. Having another adult on board made such a difference… we had a 3 hour 6 hour off watch system which meant we had decent sleep and could switch off during the day too. George I’m not sure had any deep sleep for the whole crossing but we never felt sick with tiredness which is quite usual on other night passages when it’s just the two of us. Pacific Pearl outdid all our expectations- we knew she was a safe and speedy boat, but we really couldn’t have been more confident and comfortable in her, no matter how big the waves or windy the conditions. Being a family boat, we were not pushing the sailing- we spent most the time with reefs in the main and genoa and we would reluctantly take the cruising shoot down at night, but even then, we were ahead of all the other boats we knew- and in the first third of the fleet all the way. To have the racing element of the ARC was a huge motivator- a highlight of the day would be to hear everyone’s position reports. We were absolutely addicted to watching the GPS screen- SOG (speed over ground), COG (course of ground), miles still to go and most importantly the lat and long positions…. Who needs TV? Surfing down the waves at 14 knots will always be ingrained in my brain- the thundereous whoosh when the boat surges down them is just so exhilarating! I never got bored of watching them catching us up and then rolling underneath us. It was quite hypnotic.
The girls were pretty good- less complaining than I was expecting- which was a relief! Fortunately they didn’t suffer from sea sickness and the rolliness didn’t seem to bother them at all. They read a lot, spent hours playing barbies in dens they’d made, dressed up… they even had a SSB net most days doing quizzes and games with the other children on the radio. Very funny to hear them talk on the VHF… roger this and affirmative that!!! Proper boat kids these days! We tried to do some school bits- I had to bribe them with sweets to do a poem about the waves or stars…. And I managed to get them to write a little bit of a diary- but not a huge amount. I didn’t have the energy to be honest!
If you ask the girls what was their best bit, they would all say the day we had no wind. It was a beautiful sunny day- we were about 6 days in- no other boats in sight, just a vast ocean. Anyway, it had to be done… a swim…. With 5 km of sea beneath us we stopped the engine (only day we had to motor) and we all jumped over board. An experience none of us will ever forget! And not only did we have this amazing impromptu swim, but we saw masses of dolphins and then we caught a whopper of a fish!! A 3ft dorado. So chuffed. It was the only day any of us were tempted to break our dry boat promise…
So, it’s Boxing Day today and we’re having a relaxing day on the boat after a brilliant beach bbq for Christmas day yesterday. There’s no doubt it does not feel the same as at home- you just can’t feel christmassy when it’s hot and you don’t have masses of family around, but for this year it couldn’t have been better- an idylic spot with loads of other family boats… exactly what we hoped for. We’ve met some amazing families over the last few months- spending so much time with other people who share the same mind set as us has been the making of the trip. We’re all here for the same reason, doing what we can to live the dream!!
