It was another magic night aboard Sans Souci. After chef Phil’s delicious dinner of Chicken cordon bleu, we conducted the evening roll call. These roll calls are becoming ever more fun as the jokes, pranks and outrageous fishing stories seem to grow. Goleen now claims to have caught Sea Fox’s 4-foot fish and (wouldn’t you know it) it got away again with a lure. Crosser was boarded by a giant squid, which they fought and killed with dental floss. They are now enjoying calamari.
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While discussing the rather tricky routing in the final approach to the Bermuda Yacht Club, Grey Pearl wanted the Lat/Lon of the nearest bar. And much more… Emeritus has finally come within radio range and will join tonight’s roll call.
My watch last night was 9:00PM to midnight. The moonless sky was breathtaking with stars from horizon to horizon. The running lights of our faithful fleet blended with the stars as we floated along on the surreal “Lake Atlantic”
I spent much of my watch standing at the Portuguese Bridge enjoying the balmy air and counting shooting stars. It was so beautiful, that several people who didn’t want to waste the experience by sleeping stayed up. We chatted about nothing and everything in a way that just doesn’t seem to happen in “real life”.
The pleasant melodic and reassuring purr of the dry exhaust was a backdrop to the above scene. Our faithful Lugger engine located two flights below us has of course run non-stop since we left Ft. Lauderdale without a hiccup. These magnificent engines are designed to run 20,000 hours or more and are superb pieces of machinery. Our trip around the world on the Nordhavn 40 in 2001/2002 put 3,500 hours on the Lugger engine, so you can see that most of us will not live long enough to see our Luggers “wear out”.
I talked to Jim last night and this morning by SSB and he was euphoric about the wonderful day that they had in Group 2. They launched their RIB and played, fished and moved from boat to boat conducting video interviews for the documentary. Group 2 was 24 miles ahead of us as of this morning, so we plan to catch them sometime this evening.
This morning has dawned with an imperceptible shift in mood and weather. As predicted by weather router Walt Hack, we now have light winds and seas from the west, which means from astern. Following seas and winds are of course a “sailor’s delight”, but the glossy “oily” seas which so captivated us yesterday and now gone. The radio chat and activities on board have now turned to preparation for tomorrow morning’s arrival. Reality has intruded on the special bond that has formed among the 6 vessels of NAR Group 1 over the last 4 days…
It may sound strange to some of you readers, but I almost wish that Bermuda were further away than the 147 miles now showing on the GPS…
Love being at sea,
Dan
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Dan,
Since you were so quick to respond… I have a comment on garbage disposal.
If someone such as Henry were to walk around a selection of Caribbean islands and see the garbage problems that they have now because of the flood of cruisers to the island, he would realize the need to dispose of as much of the vessels garbage at sea as possible.
I have seen many times, the disgusting dump sites on these poor islands, the rotting food, the papers blowing around in the wind, the flies, dogs, cats, pigs and rats that are ripping apart the plastic garbage bags that are full of scraps and waste from the cruising folks.
I came to the rapid conclusion that all paper, food, tins, glass and basically anything except plastic, should indeed be cast into the depths (of course not the shallows) to become part of the planet again. The plastic containers, bottles and bags should be washed out and taken ashore at the larger islands, as they are more capable of dealing with the garbage problems.
Anybody that suggests anything to the contrary, should try cruising the islands, walking the islands, smelling the islands and checking out the local garbage disposal plan!
Back to work,
James Knight Commissioning & Service Manager
Nordhavn South East