The first few days at St Lucia have been hectic and much work has to be done. And of course essential socialising as well! We managed one final boat outing with the current crew, taking a day trip to the beach anchorage at Pigeon Island (Tuesday 12th) and a dinghy ride and walk ashore to Fort Rodney on top of Pigeon Point. Nick Moody, who turned out to be a great addition to the crew, flew home to Spain today and David Mac has moved ashore, he says to allow work to progress on the boat. He says its nothing to do with the comfortable beds, hot showers, hotel luxury pool, and the air conditioning .
The mainsail is being restitched, a fridge man is coming tomorrow. Skipper has dragged out his 3000 item job list and is grumpily working his way through it. 36 degrees today with 82% humidity. Getting more fans on board is a priority. Ventilation rather than human type, although would also apreciate the latter. Rodney Bay Marina is not a place for relaxing in serene silence. Every boat boy, pirogue, pirate ship, hot rod, and burger stand, has the world’s loudest reggae rap ghetto blaster to rend the night, or early morning, sky by. I guess boring staid old folks have to learn to wise up and get used to it....go with the flow even. I’ll practice with some rum and see if that works ok.
There are still a few boats left to come in but the finish line officially closes on Saturday. Because the fleet was so spread out, working out actual corrected times will be a little difficult so we will not know our final place for a while. I was happy that we did our best and we brought Raparee in fairly high up the field for her age and size. Our motoring hours will of course knock us back down a bit, but we had no control over the weather at the end, so we can’t help that. She went pretty well in the first 2 weeks keeping up some regular 24 hour 7 knot averages. Not bad for an old cruiser.
The transatlantic element is over (ARC website blog), but Raparee’s own travel blog will continue.
Thanks to Bill Lewis for putting Raparee's blogs on the blogsite during the crossing. I sent them to him by radio.
There may be a slight delay in getting restarted though because getting good internet access is fraught with difficulty. Photos were originally intended as well, but bandwidth limitations have also made this very difficult.
Mike B and RAPAREE at St Lucia
Well done Raparee, and the Raparees. As you say, not bad going for an aged cruiser (Skipper or boat?) Just goes to prove you don't need your modern, hi-tech stuff to cross oceans and get to places.(As if we didn't know that already!) I'm sure my old Halmatic could have got there, but probably not its owner! Have a happy Christmas in the sun, Have a tot or two for me! Cheers! Sid 'n Margaret.
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