Right now we have 30 nm left to Mendelo at Cape Verde and expect arrival early evening. The weather is behaving very nicely and may all passing be like this. It has been a little slow at times, but 5 knots and flapping sails and 2 m waves, is much to prefer to 30 knots and four meter of waves.
Listening into the SSB rapport from the ARC rally at noon today, we have also been lucky with the boat. Other boats have bigger maintenance jobs to do, than we upon arrival. On North Star we have a switch which need repair, a shower pump which stopped working and some provisioning. So really not very much.
This morning was fantastic. We have been talking about whales and dolphins, since we took off. Today was the day. First, Dolphins was playing around the boat and jumping meters out of the water, just to show off for our cameras. Then suddenly, the notice came – whales on starboard. And correctly several humpback whales were in water around the boat, and showed their exhaust and big bodies to us. It is a very beautiful sight to see this big mammals, in their original element
Our crew plan and watch plan have been working really well. We started out with four hour watches day and night for the first few days and then moved into two at night and one during day hours. The last two days, we have settled into one on watch day and during night one in the cockpit and a backup sleeping, but on call. The crew have clearly learned a lot in a short time and runs tne boat very efficiently – and ready for the crossing to St. Lucia of 2100 nm.
Tonight we are looking forward to beers, showers and to compare our boat performance with other boats – but so far the reports we have received from people with internet access promise that North Star have sailed really well. It goes without saying that this is just a crusing rally, so we are not competing….
Position is 17 deg 08 N and 24 deg 32 W, sog 6.6 kn and cog is 220 deg. Wind is 14 kn from NNE.
Have a great weekend, greeting from the Crew