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As the ship’s clock ticked over the midnight hour, the strong winds and high seas continued as expected, but having no moon until just before 0100 made for a very dark night indeed.

By the time Elaine and Justine went off watch, though, the night skies had started to lighten as the moon rose behind the clouds. In the distance, to the southeast of us, we could also see flashes of sheet lightening, which continued through Roy and Paul’s watch and was still occurring when the girls came back on watch for their early morning shift, except it had moved almost due south of us. This was an indication that the tropical wave was continuing to move westward as forecast. We were relieved, though, that this weather had stayed south of us and remained grateful for the continuation of the stronger winds that had filled in yesterday morning.

At the end of her watch, Elaine made Roy boiled eggs and toast for breakfast before she scooted off to bed, having struggled through her watch with Justine. It hadn’t helped matters that she kept having to reef the headsail as the wind continued to strengthen. Instead of heading to bed, Justine had decided to skip an early morning breakfast and wait until Paul surfaced to make them omelettes, given that we still had an inordinate number of eggs for this stage of the passage.

Elaine only surfaced after 1300 to find Roy on watch, Paul sleeping and Justine enjoying the cool breeze in the cockpit; it was certainly getting hotter and more humid as we continued west.

During Roy’s morning watch he let out the reef Elaine had added, but added it back in soon thereafter as the wind strengthened yet again, so onwards we went on a double-reefed headsail alone. Of course, it definitely didn’t help matters that our anemometer had decided to then go on the brink, leaving us without wind speed, although we still had wind direction; not ideal, but better than nothing.

The swell had also remained at around 3 metres as forecast, but was expected to start easing sometime tomorrow. More importantly, though, it was expected to change direction to coincide with the wind direction as apposed to the current situation of remaining on our starboard quarter, coupled with a separate northerly swell which continued to have us rockin’ and rollin’ as each wave hit Paw Paw on the beam.

When Elaine was back on watch after Roy had headed to bed, she did her usual cleaning of the galley and saloon, breaking a glass in the process with all the wobbling around we were doing in the unrelenting side swell.

On the upside our DMG (Distance Made Good) was sitting at 2020NM by the time the 1500 deck log readings rolled around, the storms appeared to be staying south of us, the sun was trying to break through the overcast skies and we were continuing west with S/Y Wilma for company.

Additionally, our orchid plant, Daphne, had definitely moved to the maternity ward as one of her buds had started to open and it was looking likely that two more would follow suit in quick succession.

Dinner was a humble affair as we worked our way through the last of the fresh produce onboard; besides oranges, we still had potatoes, onions, garlic and the last packet of chopped carrots and string beans. All things considered, we’d done well to still have fresh anything at this stage of the passage.

Since it was Elaine’s turn to cook, she decided that some potatoes needed to be consumed before they went off, so dinner was tuna fishcakes and chips, accompanied by a tartar sauce; a nice garden salad would have gone down like a treat, but the meal was tasty enough.

Before long it was time for the girls to head to bed. The boys, however, had plenty to deal with on their watch due to the squalls that popped up to our stern then passed overhead, bringing with them rain and stronger winds, including a wind shift.

Once the girls came on watch and following the handover briefing, we decided that sitting at the helmstation was probably a good idea and a better place to be to manage any squalls, if need be. Elaine also decided to add the third reef to the headsail; it was staggering that we were still flying along at 6.5-7.5 Kts on a handkerchief of sail. Elaine and Justine then spent the next three hours managing squalls that, fortunately, passed to the south of us, and had a good chinwag, given that we didn’t have to whisper; no one could hear our voices over the noise of the ocean as Paw Paw glided over the waves.

At the stroke of midnight, with an hour left of our watch, we had a smidgen of over 750 NM to go. Slowly, but surely we were getting there!

Today started the same way as yesterday had ended; making very slow progress westward. After dropping the mainsail, though, we had a less stressful sail on the headsail alone, since we didn’t have to stay on wind vane to prevent an accidental jibe with the very flaky wind conditions. Instead we could set our heading for a more comfortable ride in the swell and to give us the best VMG (Velocity Made Good) possible. Additionally, we didn’t have to listen to the mainsail flopping around in the side swell. All in all, it was a better and quieter option, allowing everyone to get some rest overnight.

Having set the ship’s clock back yesterday as well and moved our watches forward by an hour too, sunrise was at a more appropriate time this morning of 0710, with daylight starting to break just after 0615.

By 1300 we’d passed the 2/3-way mark and we had less than 878NM to go.

Our day took on the usual routine; Elaine and Justine went off watch after breakfast. Before Elaine headed to bed for the morning, though, leaving Roy and Paul on watch, the decision was taken to stay on the headsail alone and all unused sheets were stowed, including the preventer, following which the saloon windows were washed, the latter thanks to Paul and the former required due to the deteriorating weather conditions expected from later today through to Wednesday as a result of a tropical wave that had formed to the south of us, plus a strengthening ridge to the north of us. Thankful for the stronger winds, we, however, had to reef the headsail a tad to accommodate the sea state and prevent Paw Paw from surfing down waves or, indeed, skidding down sideways.

Elaine surfaced around noon and assumed her afternoon watch, which included removing the bread from the oven at the appropriate time which Roy had started to bake on his watch and making chocolate chip muffins, the latter to celebrate reaching the 2/3-way mark, while Justine assumed her position in the sun after Roy and Paul went for their afternoon naps.

By 1500 we still had S/Y Wilma to our starboard side, appearing yesterday again after crisscrossing our bow a few days ago. While we’ve seen a few other yachts pop up on the AIS (Automatic Identification System) we haven’t visually seen them.

News from ARC Rally Control this morning informed us that the first of the racing yachts had arrived in St Lucia, while the centre of the fleet were well over halfway across the Atlantic Ocean.

Afternoon tea / coffee and muffins marked our milestone before Captain’s music hour recommenced after a few days of being absent, for no other reason than Roy had simply forgotten. It was inevitable that sooner or later the music hour would turn into a dance session, occurring this evening when Roy started to play Mango Groove, a band Elaine and Justine both love.

To a beautiful sunset, Justine danced around the cockpit keeping a firm grip on the handrail to the helmstation for safety and Elaine bobbed in her seat, while the boys looked on with their usual look of dismay.

By then it was bedtime for the girls leaving the boys on watch. With the deteriorating conditions, as expected, Roy reefed the headsail to steady Paw Paw and slow here down somewhat, a configuration Elaine kept for the first hour of the watch, but reefed a little more and bared away a degree or two to keep the apparent wind at an acceptable level . A tad disconcerting was having S/Y Wilma in relatively close proximity considering the weather conditions, causing us to keep a watchful eye on their progress too.

On other news, our orchid, Daphne, as she has been christened by Justine, is budding beautifully and we’re expecting to be parents again by the time we reach St Lucia.

By end of day, we had 810NM to go, not that we’re counting or anything!

It was hard to believe we’d entered our third week and hopefully, our last week, at sea.

However, we first had another series of watches to complete and to solve the source of various lights on the horizon, the first occurring at the change of watch last night when Roy spotted a light on the horizon; was it a yacht, a star or, indeed, a planet, eventually concluding it was a star low on the horizon, given the very dark night.

The next light appeared on the horizon around 0100, after Elaine and Justine had enjoyed some stargazing again, leading Justine to believe a cruise ship had appeared out of nowhere, only to realise it was, in fact, the rising moon again and a stunning one at that. It literally looked more like the sun with its red tint. Simply beautiful!

These distractions were greatly appreciated, though, given the extremely frustrating conditions we found ourselves in from a weather perspective. With the very light winds increasing periodically, Elaine tried, in vane, to switch the engine off. However, during Roy and Paul’s watch, the wind direction and speed became a little bit more favourable to do so, making for a peaceful sail, albeit at a snails pace. This continued for the first hour of Elaine and Justine’s early morning watch, before the wind started to back and veer through 50 degrees and the speed increased and dropped repeatedly from 13 Kts to 4 Kts respectively, never mind the horrible side swell that continued to plague us. As a result, Paw Paw rocked from side to side, sails flogged all over the place and we were getting nowhere.

With that, Elaine furled the headsail, sheeted in the mainsail, put Paw Paw on a broad reach to keep as much as possible of the very little wind we had in the mainsail and switched the engine back on to give us a more consistent speed. We were, however, now heading towards the US coast, but it had to suffice until daybreak.

When Roy surfaced around 0800, him and Elaine unfurled the headsail, taking it over to the port side and placing it on the port barberhauler, sheeted out the mainsail again and set a COG (Course Over Ground) in the general direction of west rather than northwest, then enjoyed a bacon buttie for breakfast, using the remainder of the fresh bread Roy had baked yesterday; it was Sunday after all! Justine settled for an egg sandwich, while Paul had to be woken to enjoy his bacon and egg sandwich, before Elaine trundled off to bed after everyone had been fed and watered.

While Elaine and Justine were off watch, the wind direction steadied out of the east-northeast and increased slightly in strength, allowing Roy and Paul to set Paw Paw back on a run and putting us back in the right direction, albeit still at a painful crawl.

During this time, however, the ship’s clock was set back too by two hours, completely confusing Elaine, given that she’d gone to sleep at around 0910 then woke to see her watch indicating 0915. Thinking that her watch had given up the ghost, she turned over and went straight back to sleep, surfacing at her usual 1200 to do her afternoon watch. There was just one small problem; it was, in fact, 1400 in real terms!

By this stage, poor Roy was exhausted and really needed his sleep, but had decided to rather leave Elaine to sleep, given that the past few days were proving to be more of a struggle for her, primarily due to problems trying to sleep in her off time; a struggle everyone was having at varying degrees due to the terrible swell rocking Paw Paw around combined with the noise of an engine, never mind all the clanging of the rigging. The flaky conditions had become a nightly occurrence, now adding to frustration levels at our very slow progress. Letting her sleep, however, was a quip pro quo arrangement, given that Elaine sits on watch every afternoon, while everyone else sleeps or tries too at least, or simply has downtime, an arrangement that suits her just fine because it gives her some quiet time and the time to tidy up and clean the common areas of the saloon and galley everyday.

On the upside, by 1300, thankfully, the winds had picked up again to around 13-15 Kts, increasing our SOG (Speed Over Ground) to 5.5 Kts from the painful 4-4.5 Kts overnight. Additionally by 1530 we had 996NM to go. That meant by tomorrow, we’d reach the 2/3-way mark; we had reason for a double celebration in reaching two more significant milestones. Regardless, this was stacking up to be our slowest passage of this circumnavigation!

Tonight, at the end of Roy and Paul’s first watch, Elaine was woken to the news that we had to drop the mainsail after Paw Paw had started to surf down some rather large waves. With that the usual procedure ensued, but, of course, we picked the darkest night of all; no moon and no stars due to an overcast sky.

Back on track with the mainsail secured, we continued westward on our trusty headsail alone enjoying a SOG of around 5 Kts without an engine; onwards we go!

Last night, in light winds we bumbled along, although the horrible swell remained with us, rocking Paw Paw from side to side and taking the wind out of the sails every time she got into a groove.

An obscured waning gibbous appeared behind clouds on the horizon just after midnight, putting Justine in a panic when she noticed a light to our stern and wondered how on earth that vessel had appeared out of nowhere after she’d just check the chartplotter and radar. Needless to say, she was very relieved when Elaine informed her that it was, in fact, the moon rising.

By the time Elaine and Justine came back on their early morning watch, not much had changed from their midnight watch, so onwards we trundled.

There was, however, one small problem; the Iridium-Go had frozen for some weird and wonderful reason and wouldn’t reset when Elaine switched off the circuit breaker to it. It was a problem that had to wait until Captain Roy resurfaced. In the interim Elaine would have to wait to transmit her email to loved ones giving them an update on the status aboard Paw Paw.

She fortunately didn’t have to wait too long after Roy and Paul surfaced. Thankfully, after a hard reset, the Iridium-Go worked again. By then too the trade winds had picked up again for the day, this time out of the east; the wind direction we’d been waiting on, giving us a SOG of anything up to 8.5 Kts in 15-20 Kts of wind, under sunny blue skies and scattered puffy white clouds. The rather large following sea certainly helped to contribute to our speed. All this meant we didn’t have to do anything with the sail plan either, other than for Roy to do his morning circuit of Paw Paw to check the rigging before Elaine headed to bed. Justine had retired about an hour earlier having sat on duty at the navigation station for both our watches during the night.

What surprised us all, however, was Roy spotting a yacht to our starboard side at daybreak, less than half a nautical mile from us, without any navigation lights switched on, no AIS (Automatic Identification System) and no radar reflector, as Elaine and Justine hadn’t picked it up on the radar a few minutes earlier. Scary stuff indeed!

After her morning nap, Elaine surfaced at around 1230 to find Paul sleeping, Justine staring out into the big blue yonder and Roy baking bread. With instructions on when to put the bread in the oven and when to turn it, Roy headed to bed, leaving Elaine on watch for the afternoon.

By 1500, Paul had surfaced and had found his spot in the cockpit to stare out into the big blue yonder, the bread was out of the oven and slices had been devoured, before Justine and Roy headed to their respective cabins for some “me time”.

Dinner was complements of Roy and the meal plans had gone out the window. It was now a case of :”how many different ways can one cook chopped peppers, mushrooms and baby marrows?” Roy settled for a sweet and sour stir-fry tonight, which was delicious.

By then it was time for the girls to head to bed, but one hour into the boys’ watch an engine had to be put on, given the counter current we had and the lighter winds, making for a less peaceful night of motor-sailing.

When Elaine and Justine came on watch, their first duty of the night was to stargaze and enjoy the stunning starry night sky before the waning gibbous appeared on the horizon later.

With just 1120 NM to go, our second week at sea came to a close.

With the end of our second week at sea approaching, we’re continuing westward in rather lumpy seas, more akin to a washing machine, forcing the decision to de-power the mainsail and add another reef to the headsail to slow us down, in an attempt to increase the comfort level of our very bouncy ride, as waves and swell slammed into Paw Paw from various directions. Not very pleasant at all!

We were making good progress, though, increasing our average passage SOG ( Speed Over Ground) overall, so no complaints on that front.

On their early morning watch Elaine and Justine waited for daylight with bated breath to see whether or not we were going to have a sunnier day. The wait was slightly longer this morning, since sunrise was only at 0845 according to our ship’s clock, the latter set to UTC for this passage. Thankfully sunny skies with white puffy clouds emerged. Then, with enough daylight and Roy up and about too, him and Elaine added a second reef to the mainsail and unfurled the full headsail in a wing-on-wing configuration. With this configuration and our revised COG (Course over Ground), we were heading straight to St Lucia now, with the additional advantage of a more comfortable ride.

After breakfast Elaine headed to bed, briefly waking at around noon, then went straight back to sleep. It was close to 1400 when she surfaced again; clearly she needed the sleep. Sending everyone else to bed then, she did the afternoon watch as everyone slept like babies, but not before see ensured Roy was safe in fitting a safety line to our second reefing point on the mainsail.

During Elaine and Justine’s off watch, though, Paul had assisted Roy in rebalancing Paw Paw by sheeting out the mainsail a little more and adding the preventer. In doing so, they got Paw Paw to sail directly downwind at 180 degrees; another first!

Elaine opted to do dinner tonight, since Paul had taken her night on Wednesday and last night everyone was still full from our celebratory lunch. She did, however, also opt to cook one of Justine’s designated meals; a butter chicken curry, without the chicken of course, and rice with popadoms for starters.

Then, making the most of a very pleasant evening, Justine and Paul enjoyed a game of backgammon in the cockpit, while Elaine washed the dinner dishes and Roy kept watch. It was close to 2000 when Elaine and Justine headed to bed, leaving the boys to their first watch of the night.

Towards the end of their watch, however, the wind died, leaving Elaine and Justine to try and motor-sail; an impossible task with a wing-on-wing configuration, resulting in the headsail being furled. In setting the wind angle to keep the wind in the mainsail, though, turned Paw Paw to sit side-to the horrible swell. With that, the sails were returned to the original configuration and the engine switched off, resigned to bumble along at around 4.8 Kts in the hope that the wind would pick up again, the latter activities bringing our day to a close.

Fortunately our day started on the positive note that it had ended on yesterday; we were sailing in good conditions and making good progress. Justine continued to be a superstar by successfully completing both our three hour watches, primarily on her own, with Elaine awake to provide assistance when necessary, but her help made for far less tiring watches for Elaine. We understand from the boys that Roy too was enjoying less tiring watches, given that Paul was doing half of each of their three hour watches, with Roy in attendance to handle any issues emerging. It was definitely a working solution all round. All Elaine had to do now was wrestle back part of a watch from Justine so that she didn’t get too tired.

By 0730, daybreak was on the eastern horizon again, with a waning gibbous about to set in the west.

The only activities of the night were at the change of watch when Elaine and Roy took Paw Paw off the wing-on-wing configuration, choosing a broad reach configuration instead, given the change in wind direction and putting us on a COG (Course Over Ground) of roughly 270T, maximising our VMG (Velocity Made Good). This was slightly altered during Elaine and Justine’s early morning watch to bring our COG to around 259T, thereby allowing us to run parallel to S/Y Rockhopper of London rather than converging with them. A wind shift, however, sounded the alarm, waking Roy up, but after he went back to bed, allowed Elaine to reclaim our previous wind angle, thereby increasing our SOG (Speed Over Ground) back to above 7 Kts again, but still had us running parallel to S/Y Rockhopper of London. Since Roy had been woken up, he asked Elaine to start the generator, ensuring our batteries stayed charged, before he trundled back to bed.

Breakfast was the usual affair; cereal or cereal bar, fruit juice, fresh fruit and tea or coffee, although this morning the only fresh fruit we had left were oranges, which were supplemented with tinned mangoes.

Our halfway mark was fast approaching too, with only 30 NM to go, following which we’d be on the downhill run, always a psychological relief on any ocean crossing.

Crossing the imaginary line at around 1230, celebrations to mark the occasion included a lunch of freshly baked cheese scones, complements of Elaine, crackers, smoked salmon, smoked mussels, prosciutto, Kalamata olives, Spanish green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, an assortment of cheeses and a small bottle of Moët Chandon champagne, a small bottle given that we were still on passage, which we always undertake as a “dry boat”. Needless to say, everyone was completely stuffed afterwards, though, and needed a nap, leaving Elaine on watch after she’d slept all morning. It was a fitting celebration indeed, including a toast to Neptune for our safe passage onwards!

On the weather front, it’s been an overcast, gloomy day, with a storm of sorts materialising to our stern just after daybreak, bringing with it some rain and churned up seas, as it passed overhead during the morning. The associated stronger trade winds, though, were most welcome, allowing us to keep our speed up all day.

We did have a few other yachts for company today too, including S/Y Lulu and S/Y Helena, in addition to S/Y Rockhopper of London. S/Y Anila was somewhere just over the horizon from us and Roy had enjoyed another chat to them earlier in the day.

By the time Elaine and Justine came on watch tonight, the waning gibbous was just appearing from behind the cloud bank to the east of us, S/Y Lulu and S/Y Helena had continued in a southwesterly direction, passing astern of us in doing so, while S/Y Rockhopper of London had taken off like a bat out of hell, doubling the distance between us. Paw Paw, on the other hand, was reefed down for the night, given the unsettled weather all day. This of course, reduced our speed and provided a more comfortable ride, allowing everyone to sleep more peacefully, rather than being flung around in their beds as Paw Paw bounced over waves.

During the intervening hours since crossing the halfway mark, we’d covered an additional 60NM, bringing us ever closer to the finish line.

Towards the end of Elaine and Justine’s first watch, we were perturbed by the fact that we couldn’t see the lights of an unknown vessel showing up on the radar, although it was positioned immediately to our port side within a nautical mile. Exacerbating the situation was that its AIS (Automatic Identification System) kept flickering on and off, all of which was making it extremely dangerous to navigate.

Having safely passed it, though, Elaine decided to wake Roy slightly earlier than the start of his and Paul’s watch because another vessel was sitting in front of us, across our course line and she was concerned that we couldn’t see its lights either.

Once Roy was on deck, we switched on the steaming light to illuminate our sails and continued on our course. Soon thereafter Roy experienced the same situation as Elaine and Justine had, only this time the suspicions vessel moved to our starboard side and was less than half a nautical mile from us, without a single navigation light visible.

Having experienced this situation in the South Pacific, we realised we had inadvertently sailed into an illegal Chinese fishing fleet, only we didn’t realise just how large it was at the time until after Roy was left on watch with Paul.

Hearing the engines starting, then footsteps on deck as the preventer was removed and the mainsail centred to provide greater manoeuvrability, it became apparent that something else had materialised. Back up to check that Roy didn’t need Elaine’s help, she was informed that the fleet continued for miles and that the best course of action was to change course and head due south to get out of the area entirely.

A short time later, after hearing sails being set again and the engines turned off, Roy had forgotten to fold the propellers, creating the usual whining noise and forcing Elaine back up on deck one more time to ask him to fold them. By now, however, it was long passed the end of Elaine’s watch and she hadn’t slept a wink. It didn’t help matters that she had taken her methotrexate medication and only had one and a half hours left to try get some sleep before she was due back on watch with Justine.

When Elaine surfaced at around 0700, two hours passed her scheduled watch time, she found the wind had died, the headsail had been furled, the mainsail had been centred, the starboard engine was on and Justine was sitting at the navigation station, followed shortly by Roy popping out of his cabin, where he had taken a nap to stave off the sleep deprivation; Justine had essentially successfully completed two hours of a watch on her own, with Roy checking on her from time to time. They had decided to let Elaine sleep rather than wake her, a gesture so very much appreciated, especially being a methotrexate day.

With the wind starting to kick back in, although light, and a swell coming from three different directions, Elaine and Roy then spent the next hour trying to come up with a sail configuration that would allow us to sail and sail with the most comfort relative to the different swells; first the main was to port and the headsail to starboard, then both sails were switched, then the headsail was put on the same side as the main to try sail on a broad reach rather than wing-on-wing , all essentially unsuccessful without the option of a first reef in the mainsail and the fact that we’d decided a while back, for safety reasons, not to put the chicken chute up again, following the consequences that had materialised when we’d first hoisted it, including the risk of injury.

That meant the first reef had to be fixed, but definitely not under the best conditions in very lumpy seas. Fortunately Roy managed to get it fixed, but not before the lazyjack was released inadvertently, dropping the back end of the mainsail onto the cockpit roof and damaging the wiring on two of the solar panels. However, after rectifying the mishap and having the first reefing line functional again, the sails were set wing-on-wing and we’ve been sailing since, although we now have two solar panels to fix. Oh the joys!

Roy’s other duties of the day included running the generator and the watermaker before he returned to bed for some much needed sleep and Justine decided to explore the other side of the cockpit, leaving Elaine on watch with two able helpers for the remainder of the morning.

Soon after Roy surfaced around noon, Paul hooked a fish; a mahi mahi. So, leaving Justine to keep watch and the boys to deal with the fish, Elaine headed to bed, but couldn’t sleep at all, instead accepting that a rest was better than nothing. When she decided to get up around 1500, she found Roy filleting the fish to make ceviche and received the news that, although it was her turn, Paul would be cooking dinner instead, another gesture she was extremely grateful for. At the same time, since everyone was up and about, Captain Roy took the opportunity to reiterate the safety rules onboard, particularly the use of lifejackets and not going forward under any circumstances unless requested to do so by him, all of which were being flaunted. He was clearly looking to avoid a mutiny. In addition, he explained that no other sails would be used for the remainder of the passage for safety reasons, the consequences of which could be a possible impact on our arrival time or more motoring, but hopefully not.

On the upside Paw Paw had been sailing comfortably in anything from 10-15 Kts of wind, at times reaching 18 Kts out of the northeast to east-northeast since 1100 this morning, giving us an average SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6.6 Kts, a far cry from the 3.5 Kts earlier in the day. Additional, we only had 77NM to go until we reached the halfway mark and we’d enjoyed Captain’s music hour again accompanied by a delicious dinner, thanks to Paul, with help from Justine. A team effort had got us through a rather strained day.

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