Daily Log...

14/11/09: David & Sue are now in Las Palmas and are getting the boat ready for the off.  Lindsey, Askey, Stef and Craig will be joining them on Thursday for the final preparations.

19/11/09: The Crew are all in Las Palmas and are already having a great time (in the bar!) and will be doing the final preparations over the next couple of days.  Jos and Cathy Ball have also arrived today for the big send off on Sunday!

22/11/09: Day 0 - Well, they are on their way!  They left Las Palmas at 13:00 today along with 208 other yachts.  Please see www.worldcruising.com/arc for more information.  Spoke them them earlier and they are all in very high spirits and glad to be on their way.

 23/11/09: Day 1 - no news from them yet but they logged their location with World Cruising at 12:00 today.  So think they're having trouble with the sat phone!  Let's hope they get it sorted for tomorrow.

24/11/09: Day 2 - Spoke to Craig today and everyone very happy. Also, received the following email : Everyone very excited, we've got a pod of dolphins swimming alongside! Everyone OK on board. Start of rally was very good - loud band, loads of people, loads of boats in a very confined space - what could possibly go wrong!  Had a bit of a slow start but once we got the twin headsails set we started to reel in the fleet and have been making good progress for the last 2 days. Steve has caught 2 fish already (unfortunately one of them got away just as we were bringing on board - got video proof though! Not sure what they are but are going to have one for supper (thanks to John Clifford for recommending the tackle to buy). Weather is scorchio, wind from 10 to 30 knots, everyone getting on ok.  Lots to tinker with on the boat so Stef, Craig and Steve are in their element. Food is excellent -had spag bol for tea on Sunday night,  Chicken basque for dinner last night, and fish, Mediterranean veg and spicy couscous tonight - eating like kings!

25/11/09: Day 3 - Everyone ok on board.  Sue was suffering a bit but seems to have got over it now. We enjoyed the freshly caught fish for dinner last night - still not sure what it was but it was a very delicate white flesh - lovely cooked in butter and lemon, served with couscous and a selection of roasted Mediterranean vegetables.  Bit of  a sleepless night last night - the boat was wallowing in the sea and we were getting tossed around the beds - a bit like being inside a tumble drier.  There was also a loud creaking coming from beneath the floorboards which didn't help with the sleep-ins so we've had the floorboards up and coated them with Mr Pledge - hope this cures it!  It's another beautiful day, gorgeous sunshine, wind up our chuff at 10 to 20 knots, twin headsails working well - averaging around 7.2 knots.  As of 11am today,  we've covered exactly 500nm!

26/11/09: Day 4 - We had an extended happy hour yesterday evening (seemed like a good time to move the clock back) - G&T's all round.  Another scrumptious dinner last night, Lamb Tagine with rice and salad - bowl lickingly good!  Washed down with a fine glass of Merlot.  Still making good progress although the wind has dropped of a bit.  Everyone had a good nights sleep - Mr Pledge did the trick so no more creaking!  Very hot today so lots of sun cream in use.  Had a small problem with the headsails this morning but a fix has now been put in place so all is well again.  The toaster made an appearance this morning - toast and marmalade for breakfast (using the bread made by David's fine hands!).  Craig had his first shower today but Stef still steadfastly refusing to have a wash - nice!

New photos added today courtesy of Cathy and Jos - thank you!

27/11/09: Day 5 - Well the good news is that Stef has had a shower - the boat is once again a sweet smelling place to be.  Weather is hot, hot, hot with not a cloud in the sky.  NE'erly winds around 10-20 knots are making for some fine downwind sailing.  There were a few bits of maintenance to be done on the boat; the shackle holding the headsails to the furlin' lost it's split pin and we could have lost the sails had it not been spotted - good work Stef; the auto helm was trying to self destruct - the pin holding the hydraulic ram to the rudder-cam had become loose and was wearing its bearing away - we'll need to keep our eye on that one; the water maker stopped making water but it's now fixed and filling our tanks once again.  The happy hour turned into a disco on deck with strobing red lights and pumping steel band music putting everyone in the party mood.  Craig has just made a couple of loaves of bread and is now preparing a tuna nicoise salad for lunch.  We hooked another couple of fish today but they managed to escape our clutches before being landed on deck - user error!

28/11/09: Day 6 - We having a great time and all still really relaxed.  Craig was a slave to all yesterday, he turned out some very tasty bread and cakes including toffee & banana and chocolate & orange, all agreed he belongs in the kitchen and one day will make someone a lovely wife.  We're all very happy that the auto-helm is still working well with the latest mods, making life fairly easy on board.  We'd had one or two interesting moments when people inadvertently tripped off the battery power while doing the hourly log thus disabling the auto-helm sending the boat into a state of chaos (you could smell the fear), so Stef has fashioned a cover for the switches out of a life boat pen box, those life boat boys helping us out 1800nm south of the UK.  Chilli for dinner (hardly slumming it) Sue managed to find the sour cream and nachos, but no guacamole, must try harder (kidding) the food has been absolutely superb, in fact Stef's eating better here than at home (sorry Bec).  The weather once again has been shining on the righteous although there was a few spots of rain this morning, just after Stef put his sun tan oil on!   Stef finally realised that Craig had been hogging the choice of the beds so last night he got in first and got a excellent nights sleep, needless to say he'll be in there again tonight, the bed that is oo sir!  We've put bets on as to when we might arrive in Rodders Bay ranging from 16th to 19th December.  The Flag box is up and flags are folded and in place - Skipper judged whose row was neatest and Stef won the prize, cooking breakfast!  P' Jack still wallowing well due to down wind point of sail but we're all used to it now. We hear the weather's a bit naff in UK - Ha Ha!

29/11/09: Day 7 - Hello from the girls - lots of testosterone flying around on the boat so I'm delighted Lindsay is on board to give me some moral support, whenever a decision has to be made we have four different opinions and guess who's right - yep you got it all of them!!!  No seriously, we are all getting on very well and in good spirits.  It's a week today since we waved goodbye to Jos and Cathy in Las Palmas and it has flown by, our days are very busy with the deck checks, watch system, maintenance, cooking and cleaning.  Steve is giving us sex(tant) lessons, the boys are becoming experts in baking bread and cake, the fishing after a great start seems to have taken a dive.  We are planning our half way party which should be in the next day or two if the boys can agree on the mileage.   We are very happy with the progress we are making, PJ and the lovely starry nights and very hot sunny days.  Roast beef, Yorkshire etc tonight.  ps Need to correct Stef's estimations from yesterday's Blog - should have read 'ranging from 16th to 19th DAY' and not '16th to 19th December'

30/11/09: Day 8 - Well, today has been interesting to say the least. At 0730 the shackle holding the two genoas broke and dumped both sails into the sea. Within minutes everyone was on deck nimbly sidestepping the flying fish that had met their demise in our deck; Stef in his underpants, not a pretty sight. The ensuing 5 hours saw us retrieve the sails, no mean feat in 25 knots of wind. The next step was to have a cup of tea whilst we discussed what to do next. First we needed to bring the halyard down from the top on the mast, not easy when the boat is swaying 50 feet from side to side, so action man Askey shinned up the mast ably assisted by Stef on the winch, whilst up there all we asked him to do was take a few photographs, however he managed to drop the camera into the Atlantic, last seen heading  NE at approximately 7 knots, the cost will be deducted from his wages.  Sorting out the cats cradle of lines, sheets and guys caused a significant amount of heated debate, eventually when we had them sorted and replaced the shackle with a much more substantial version we turned into the wind and then Craig and Steve wrestled the two headsails back on to the forestay - fortunately with a great deal of flapping they went up and we were able to resume out voyage. Well done everyone!!  Other events: for supper yesterday we had a roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding lovingly prepared by Susie and Lindsay, delicious.  Overnight a rogue wave hit our port side, unfortunately Lindsay has her porthole open, you can guess the rest.  We have now settled into happy hour and are all well (oiled?). It's paella tonight, yum, yum!

01/12/09: Day 9 - Well, I'm not sure we're going to get a blog today - just spoken to the Crew and they're having a Half Way Party on deck!  It's a hard life on the good ship Parson Jack!  Well done all!!! xxx

The blog arrived after all:

02/12/09: Day 10 - Happy hour getting longer, blog getting shorter!

03/12/09: Day 11 -  It is blisteringly hot now, how we all wish for cold wet days of England in December, yeah right!  We are on track heading straight for St Lucia; day 10 and a mere 1078 nautical miles to go.  As a special treat last night we all had Chocolate Brownies, cooked by Craig drizzled with Baileys aren't we sophisticated?  Charlie Watch We had another encounter with a large ship which passed 4 NM to our stern, close enough!  Last night saw our first encounter with a squall, just off our starboard beam around 0300 it glowered at us as we watched it on our radar; they show up as a yellow thumb print on the screen and it came within 3 NM, at which point we put three reefs in, then for some inexplicable reason it decayed and by the time Lima came on watch it had disappeared; that's squalls for you.  The wind; although in the right direction has dropped significantly and we have only made 133 miles in the last twenty four hours.  Fortunately we are picking up the North Equatorial Current which is adding between a half and one knot.  We had a bit of a scare this morning; the generator did not start. We had left the radar scanner on all night which had depleted the batteries to the point where there was insufficient juice to start the generator. Fortunately the engine start battery is on a different circuit and we were able to start the engine to charge the aux batteries. We wont do that again!!  Steve is still tussling with the water maker, every time he turns his back it cuts out, infuriating.  Stef is having a go at bread making having had his second shower of the voyage, the benchmark is high as Craig and I have become fairly expert in the dark art of bread making. Lamb Tagine tonight, yum, yum. Craig is having a well earned kip and Lindsay is fast asleep on the bow.

STOP PRESS Breaking news.....Susan has chipped her toenail, major surgery is planned.

04/12/09: Day 12 - The rest of yesterday was uneventful and hot, hot, hot. During happy hour we played trivial pursuit and as usual the boys; Charlie watch, cheated, beating the girls; Lima watch by a small margin and leaving the old gits; Delta watch for dead.  However we did have another interesting night. Just before nightfall 1900 ship's time we noticed a huge weather system just off our starboard bow and being cautious by nature we decided to bear off to may be run parallel to it or pass it to the south, unfortunately it had a mind of its own and we eventually steered away from it keeping it to our stern. A major impact of such a large system was that it sucks air into itself thereby creating 20 to 25 knots winds on our port beam and since our sails are currently configured for down wind sailing i.e. twin headsails poled out you can imagine this caused a great deal of flapping and thrashing so we furled our sails and motored for several hours trying to get away from it. We were treated to an awesomely spectacular lightening display with bolts bouncing around the heavens. Finally when every thing had calmed down we resumed our course, heavily reefed. For the rest of the night due to a large number of squalls all around us we alternately sailed and motored Steve and I finishing at 0740, almost 12 hours on watch, with a large Jameson's. The radar really came into its own last night; squalls showing up as large yellow thumbprints on the screen so we have an indication of their size and proximity. Last night's weather system measured some twenty miles long and over five miles wide and growing it probably rose to over 30,000 feet.  We have become very adept at furling and reefing quickly.  The weather now is sunny, with a nice SSE force 3/4. We have just had another squall alert, fortunately running away from us to the north west. Happy days.  In between navigating, sorting out the comms, checking the weather and servicing the generator, Craig has made banana and toffee cake and chocolate chip cookies this morning, he really is becoming an awesome chef!

05/12/09: Day 13 - Yesterday afternoon was once again hot and humid which led into another eventful nights sailing.  Things started off reasonably calm but by the change of watch at midnight things started to hot up.  Delta watch spent the next few hours dodging squalls as best they could but in the end were surrounded and so had no alternative but to ride on through them.  With heavily reefed sails we ploughed on through and thankfully came out the other side laughing like idiots and carrying around 9.5 knots of speed!  The game was on and David and Steve then started chasing down the squalls (full of bravado from the few fingers of Jamesons) to get the wind and keep up the average speed.  True to form, they managed to cover 34nm in one 4 hour stint - a record for this trip so far.  By the time morning came around Steve and David, full of pride (and Jamesons) for what they'd achieved, retired for a well earned sleep.  The remainder of the morning has seen us keen to keep up the pace set by Delta watch and competition for the greatest distance covered in one watch is hotting up as quick as the weather!

06/12/09: Day 14 - Life on board has now steadied to a more sedentary pace, this mostly due to the heat but also due to the lack of maintenance required to systems, equipment and sails, a testament to the preparation put in by all, Parson Jack is sailing like a dream.  Speaking of dreams the captain and crew are now looking forward to their arrival in St Lucia and are dreaming of seeing family and friends, some of whom are flying out to met us on the other side, we also look forward to cold beers, good food, the odd G & T at 4pm, long showers and time relaxing in the sun, hold on a minute we've had all that on board!  Still, seeing family and some rock solid terra ferma will certainly be a welcome sight especially for Stef.  The weather behaved itself last night, for a change, and most if not all got a decent nights sleep, David and Steve opted for a long night shift (00.00 - 06.30) in case the squalls returned, which fortunately, they did not.  We hear the weather's a bit rough in Blighty, you'll be pleased to hear the sea temperature is rising here on what seems like a daily basis, now 28 Celsius!

07/12/09: Day 15 - The Crew tucked into a delicious Sunday roast with all trimmings.  All washed down with a few glasses of red wine.  A good nights sailing meant we sailed 171 miles in a day – record for us - taking us below 500 miles to go!  It’s another blisteringly hot morning with clear blue skies.  Superb!  Lots of love The Crew xx

08/12/09: Day 16 - Well we have 340 nm to go which should see us in around Thursday lunchtime (local time -4 hours GMT) we were hoping to make better time but since the shackle broke at the top of the mast we have sailed with a reef in but still manage 6.5 - 7 knots, the wind dies down around lunchtime which slows us down, still getting the warning of thunderstorms at night but haven't had any for a couple of nights, so we are happy with our progress and our welcome party will be in Rodney Bay in time for our arrival, we cant wait to see them.  12 litre of sherry to go and the beer should just about last out! Happy hour last night was a particularly lively one, we changed the clocks so we got an extra hour and partied they night away to sublime sounds over the speakers.

09/12/09: Day 17 -  I am told that there was a fantastic sunrise this morning, its hot today, 31 degrees. Yesterday we decided to give PJ a tidy up in anticipation of our arrival in St Lucia, this entailed throwing copious buckets of sea water over each other and retiring the stern drinking beer. Askey started it by "accidently" poring 2 gallons over me; twice. It all ended in tears when Craig ostensibly cleaning the windscreen drowned Lindsay as she came up the companionway. This was followed by a cross "grow up you lot, act your age not your shoe size" from the bowels of the galley; men and water!!! Living the Dream. As I write this blog I see we have a mere 158 miles to go, we have to look out to the north west at 15:15 today to see Catherine, Amy and Tom's et al plane fly over. Apart from a few flying fish and the odd sea bird of indeterminate make we have seen no wild life neither have we caught any fish since our early success two weeks ago. Good job we weren't relying on catching our suppers!  We are starting to see a few other yachts, to be expected now that we are approaching SL. We are still on twin poled out headsails, delaying the change to a more traditional Genoa and mainsail as late as possible. The battle with the water maker continues, the needle is just into the red. We think she; it is so contrary it must be a she, is after considerable coaxing producing about 10 litres an hour instead of the expected 30 lph, just about enough for tea and washing up.
The master baker produced his best effort to-date, however the cat is out of the bag; apparently he worked part-time in a bakery when he was at school we discover.

10/12/09: Day 18 - Land Ahoy. We crossed the finish line today at 4.04pm GMT (12.04 local time) giving us an official ARC crossing time of 18 days, 4 hours and 43 seconds.  Sue won the onboard sweepstake with a guess of an arrival time of 12.00 - only 4 minutes out!

12/10/09: As I write this I’m sipping an ice cold G&T on deck it’s the 12^th of December and the first time we have drawn breathe since our arrival.  Over the years we have followed many yachts doing the ARC reading blogs etc, but have always been disappointed that they never really give much information of their arrival, we now know why – its completely mad, exciting, very very emotional, and very busy, so here is ours or what we remember of it!!

Our last evening at sea there was a great atmosphere on board, we were all looking forward to our arrival and for Craig, Stef, David and Sue really looking forward to seeing our family who had arrived the previous day – yes it was close and had we not had the problem with the shackle which made us reef back we would have beaten them here, for Steve and Lindsay it was beer, rum, beer, rum.  We drank John McGrath whisky and oh how we laughed. 

As dawn broke we had the best sunrise of the trip – only to be swiftly followed by the worst squall, all hands on deck, of course it was Lindsay and Sue’s watch yet again.  Craig sighted St Lucia at approx 0800 and the cry of LAND AHOY went up, what a wonderful sight, we spent the next few hours discussing sail changes, Lindsay prepared a delicious brunch and gave a great sigh of relief as she escaped the hot sweaty galley for the last time, well on this trip anyway – she has been amazing and an invaluable member of the crew. 

We radioed in at 5 miles and then 2 miles and began to reset the sails, it didn’t go to plan with 35 knots of wind when we rounded Pigeon Island, but we crossed the finish line at 11.39 local time (+ 4 hours GMT) cheers went up – next came Cath on the VHF she had blagged her way onto some poor unassuming blokes yacht who let them use the radio, gave them beer and drinks for the kids, but after 3 weeks at sea I’m sure they were delighted to have some gorgeous blondes on board,  thanks chaps whoever you are for looking after them – anyway she was screaming, crying, shouting, it was great to hear her, as went entered the marina the noise level increased off the Richter scale and there they were; Cath, Amy, Tom, Beck, Liz, and Bex cheering, crying, screaming, laughing and we all joined in, it was fantastic.  As we made our way to our berth all earlier arrivals were clapping, hooting shouting congratulations, all good stuff.  Arriving at our berth again the girls didn’t let us down, I think we had the best welcome of the fleet and we can’t thank them enough for being here for us. 

When Parson Jack was safely moored, Stef did an almighty leap into Beck’s arms (lovely stuff), and his Mum, Craig ran to Cath, Amy and Tom for a group hug (not a dry eye in the house) and then it was hugs, kisses and congratulations all round, the steel band arrived as did the rum punch and the champagne flowed – a memorable end to a memorable journey. 

HUGE thanks to the good ship Parson Jack,  her crew, Cath, welcoming party and support team back in the UK for helping us fulfil our dream, we can’t thank you enough. And now we are going to chill and have a very good holiday.