Jon and Phil, two of our Polar Specialists, with the National Geographic Explorer
Over the last few weeks some of our Polar specialists have been travelling around the UK to inspect the boats that we use on Antarctic and Arctic cruises. As Carolyn, our Latin America Programme Manager, reports …
Last week I was in Windhoek for four days of meetings. After dark, cold, rainy Oxfordshire it was brilliant to spend 4 days under blue skies with temperatures of 30°C and cooling down perfectly in the evening. I stayed in a small guesthouse I hadn’t stayed in before, the Olive Grove, which is in my opinion is currently the best place to stay in Windhoek.
It’s now nearly two months since we arrived into St Lucia, brackish and battered after sailing across the Atlantic. It has to be said that it’s only been in the last fortnight or so that I’ve begun to think of the trip with a degree of fondness and pride. In the immediate aftermath of our arrival I just felt tired and wanted to get home to unwind in my own house. Once back in the UK, I didn’t really speak about the crossing that much, only to let people know how hard I’d found it.
Last week Ruth, one of our Africa Regional Managers, and I flew to Windhoek for meetings with our ground agents. We flew down overnight on a Sunday night and back overnight on the Thursday night. The time in Windhoek was great, but pretty tiring with back to back meetings for four days. Ruth somehow managed to get food poisoning on the Wednesday. So by the time we reached Windhoek airport on the Thursday night for our flight home we were both pretty strung out and tired. We looked forward to a quiet 10 hours flying gently back above Africa to the UK. Imagine our delight on getting to the check-in desk to find the plane was taken a diversion – via Accra in Ghana.
It will not have escaped the notice of our more eagle-eyed readers that it’s been a few days now since we arrived in St Lucia and as yet there has been no final log! After taking a couple of days to recover from what was quite an eventful final day, I wasn’t convinced of the need for one, but I am assured by family that there are people across the globe waiting to hear how it all ended, so here we go!
It’s amazing how the ocean can make the most rational of people superstitious! Within an hour of our arrival in St Lucia, we have to hand a completed rally declaration to the event organisers.
Well it looks like the Atlantic doesn’t want to let us go without a bit of a reminder of what she’s like – we’ve had a few showers this morning and one squall! So we’re definitely not there yet.
I think it’s safe to say that we have now had a few days of classic Trades sailing. It’s been pretty pleasant – running before a breeze of about 20 knots keeping up a speed of over 7 knots most of the time. Yesterday was a record 24hr run for us, making 168.2 nm at an average speed of just over 7 knots. We had the odd shower earlier in the day but most of the day was sunny with a fair amount of cloud about. We saw a couple of other yachts over the course of the day, one overhauling us at a distance of about half a mile.
Well yesterday was everything that the ARC is supposed to be about! After the poor start which I mentioned, things really brightened up. We had a whole day of sunshine, no rain that I know of, and were able to dry off our kit, open up the hatches and get lots of fresh air down below and generally enjoy the sailing.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I hope so… I have a fairly long tether but the end was definitely in sight when I came off watch this morning, having spent 4 hours in the dark getting heavily rained on the whole time, under a sky completely covered in cloud.
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