Rodney Bay, St. Lucia

We're currently tied up to the marina in Rodney bay on the North west point of St. Lucia. We've been treating Blue Moon to endless amounts of water to try and remove all the salt and Sahara dust she picked up on the Atlantic crossing. We plan to leave here tomorrow and start to head north stopping over night on the north end of Martinique and then on to Dominica the following day. We hope to spend a few days hiking on Dominica before continuing on North.

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Anchored in Barbados!

Position at anchor in Barbados: North 13*05'524 West 059*37'022

We made it! After 16 days and 2 hours from leaving the Cape Verdes we are now anchored off Bridgetown in Barbados. Just want to let everyone know we are okay, after loosing our SSB radio half way across and having no way to send out updates or get weather, we know a lot of you were worried for our safety. We still don't know what the problem is but will try to get it fixed here as soon as possible.

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Cape Verde to Barbados - Day 5

Position at 20:49 UTC: North 14*27'731 West 034*36'033
1457 miles to go to Barbados.

We still have pretty much exactly the same conditions, the skies have been lovely and clear today and we've been making good speed between 6-7 knots. A lot of yachts ahead of us have been getting squalls and strong winds from an area of low pressure up ahead but it should have moved north before we reach it. We may get calmer conditions in a couple of days time and I have to admit we're looking forward to a little less rolling...can't complain about the speed we're making though!

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Cape Verde to Barbados - Day 4

Position at 19:08 UTC: North 14*36'316 West 031*59'699
1609 miles to Barbados.

Not much new to report today, The winds have dropped off to a steady 15 knots out of the east and we are making about 5.5 knots. A little bit sunnier today but otherwise everything is the same, we haven't touched the sails since we first set them so we're still being pushed down wind wing on wing with a 2 meter swell.

There seems to be an abundance of flying fish in the Atlantic and part of the day we spend scooping them off the deck to try and get them back to the sea before they die. Unfortunately they are not really big enough to eat and I have a feeling the Mahi and Tuna wont be so easy to catch!

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Cape Verde to Barbados - Day 3

position at 18:44 UTC: North 15*04'596 West 029*36'245
1748 miles to go to Barbados.

Today we have very much the same conditions as yesterday with 15-20 knots of wind out of the North East and seas around 2 meters, still lumpy and confused. The sky is very grey and overcast and the sea is covered in whitecaps, the temperature is a comfortable 21*C and at night we're still in need of thermals to keep the chill out.

We've spent the day cooking up food that we're worried will not stay fresh as we had to defrost the refrigerator this morning due to it over freezing and using up too much power. It's a shame to use up all our fresh meat at the beginning of the trip and I'm starting to wonder if it's just an excuse as Jimmy is desperate to start some serious fishing!!

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Cape Verdes to Barbados - Day 2

position at 19:15 GMT is: North 15*53'665 West 027*22'767
1878 miles to Barbados

We've had a good sail today averaging about 5 knots of boat speed, we have 15 knots of wind out of the ENE and very confused and choppy seas. It seems that there's swell coming from two or three different directions and so when they merge they push us around making for quite an uncomfortable ride. We're sailing downwind with the head sail poled out on one side and the full main on the other and luckily our wind steering unit is doing a great job of holding a course.

Our plan is to head a little south of our rhum line to Barbados so as to try and avoid some of the stronger winds that are generally found on a higher latitude. We heard on the net this morning that the yacht 'Egret' ahead of us reported loosing their rudder and so other yachts are changing course to help them. It sounds like they may me directly ahead of us by 5 days so we will see if we can help with fuel or anything else when we are closer.

Life on board is slowly falling into a more familiar rhythm of three hour watches at night and half day watches during the day. The lee cloth is rigged up on our sea berth and it's coming in handy to strap us into the bunk so we can get some relief from the constant rolling!

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Cape Verdes to Barbados - Day 1

Position at 18:46 UTC: North 16*43'592 West 025*30'597
1987 Miles to Barbados

We spent a lovely few days relaxing in Mindelo on Sao Vincente island in the Cape Verdes. On friday we joined cruisers from five other yachts and caught the ferry over to Santo Antaou island for a day of exploring. We hired a driver with a mini van to take us around and were amazed at the stunning scenery. The islands remind us a lot of the Caribbean but much more mountainous and with a lot less tourists!

Mindelo also offered us the chance to fill up on Diesel(€0.84 per liter), Petrol (€1.60 per liter) and drinking water (€0.02 per liter). There are good laundry services that will wash for you or you can do it yourself. The marina is a little overpriced at €30 a night but we were more than happy to anchor out and there is a free dinghy dock. All in all we really enjoyed the stop and we're happy to be back in the more relaxed African islands.

Today it was time to leave so after doing some final provisions we upped anchor and left the anchorage at Midday. The wind was blowing up to 35 knots in the pass between the islands but now we seem to be in the wind shadow and are motoring with none, yachts ahead of us are reporting 20-25 knots and big seas so hopefully we'll pick that up before dark so we can set our sails in the light.

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