13 days 21 hours 25 minutes 53 seconds
We left Mindelo hoping for a 16 day crossing but had far more wind than we thought we would making for a fast crossing. We don’t think the magnitude of being here in the Caribbean will sink in for some time!
With 2 days to go, we met up with the yacht Mamosa & duly took photos and video of each other, & would swap images once in the marina in Rodney Bay. We wanted to make landfall in daylight mainly for safety but also to see the east and north coastline. This meant slowing down on our last night so we reduced down to a double reefed mainsail only making about 5 knots in 18 knots of wind. However the Atlantic had other ideas about our speedand gave us a night to remember. At 11pm on my watch the wind suddenly increased to 35 knots and the first of 4 full blown squalls hit with really heavy rain. We’d never seen this before and it was something inbetween exciting and worrying as we had no idea how long each would last. In the end Nick & I stayed in the cockpit all night in case the weather worsened. The Atlantic certainly gave us something to remember.
Daylight came and the island of St Lucia, although blanketed in cloud, was a great sight to see. We were welcomed to the Caribbean by a finish line yacht which was a 2017 arc+ yacht, and allocated a berth in the marina. Applause all round, horns sounded from other yachts and the formal process of being handed rum punch and fruit… that tasted so good!
We had Suds laundry take away our heavy bulky washing which was returned the same day at a very reasonable price, washed Silhouette and I need to make a note of the items which need looking at on board over the next week or so.
Rum punch anyone 🙂
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