5 December
WE ARE HALF WAY!! Early morning the attachment of the spinnaker gave way with a loud bang this is a fairly difficult repair but by sundown we had all joined in to do a sewing job. The repair looks horrible but we hope will see us through. Without the spinnaker it is unlikely we can achieve the necessary 200 miles per day to ensure a good place in the race. Despite this set back we ironically still achieved 200 miles the last 24 hours ( that is 8.5 knots average). Alex and Igor sent off a message in a bottle this afternoon. This overnight we had the most perfect clear skies and a bright almost full moon to brighten the sea. Again no other boats were heard on VHF or seen this day. We arew quite amazed that we are so isolated when we are at sea going in the same dirction and similar speed to 250 othe yachts and we have not seen any merchant shipping either for 5 days now. 6 December Whales, lots of them have been escorting us today for about for hours. We believe them to be Minke Whales. The repaired spinnaker is ready to go up now but the wind is a little too strong so it will remain down until we cannot sustain eight knots on our main sails. Rubbish disposal is a problem for us as we do have to be environmentally friendly. We take care that only biodegradable rubbish goes into the sea. So, all plastics, especially have been crushed and stored. We now are dicussing the arrival time for St Lucia as with just 1200 miles to go there is optimism on the night of 12 December. We are planning a sweepstake on the most accurately estimated arrival time
