#holidaysforone

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Hummingbird sails back north for the ARC 2018 prize giving

Hummingbird's crew enjoyed a morning off in preparation for our night passage North back to St Lucia. Most lounged by the pool, sipping smoothies and soaking up the sun, making the most of the eerily-quiet facilities in Glossy Bay Marina. Still, it appears that the place wasn't quite empty enough as Danny and Terry got evicted from their table in the otherwise-deserted bar so the billionaire Irish owner of the marina could have his lunch in peace. They're seriously offended, particularly as they'd both had showers within the last day. The cheek of it - acting like he owns the place...

Back onboard, Gary, a complete novice three weeks ago, gave us a great in-depth overview of our passage north. We slipped lines at 3pm local, raised the Yankee 2 and found our course. Skipper Stu, never one to let a potential teaching moment go untaught, decided that the 30-degree of the Caribbean was the ideal time for a lesson in storm sails, so we duly wrestled with the storm jib and trisail to keep him happy.

At one point, as we were hoisting the bright orange trisail up its track, a passing catamaran radioed to ask if we were having difficulties. It was tempting to reply that indeed we were as the rum ran out two days ago, but we stuck to strict Channel 16 protocol, thanked them for their concern, and reassured them it was just a training exercise. I think they might have been worried they hadn't heard about the hurricane we were clearly expecting.

Once we'd learned all there is to know about storm sails, we opted for a more conventional sail plan. Alex, Clare and Danny went to the foredeck to swap the storm jib with the staysail, getting a rather large soaking while there. So they have been given the first watch off. They may just about have dried off by the time they're due back on deck.

With the trisail down and two reefs in the main just as the sun set, we are cruising nicely northwards, eating up the miles. Meanwhile Charlie and Rene are battling away in the galley preparing dinner while Stephen and Gary stand watch on deck.

Terry and Stu

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Hummingbird heads to the Grenadines

Today Hummingbird went back to sea...we slipped lines in the morning and raised sails outside the harbour as a squall passed overhead. Upon clearing the wind settled in for the day and we cruised south down St Lucia's west coast. Clare and Rene made a Greek salad for lunch as Charlie, gary and Danny helmed us in the ever improving wind conditions. Hummingbird was touching 8kts in flat seas.

It didn't take long to cover our planned 20nm to our anchorage at the pitons and once attached to a mooring ball and the dinghy launched Lis was first in the water followed quickly by most others. Terry and Clare explored ashore while while the rest of the crew relaxed in the sunshine and watched fishes and a turtle while snorkelling amongst the rocks.

Charlie and Danny cooked dinner while Stephen made a passage plan ready for us to slip lines after dinner and head south to Bequia in the grenadines.

As I write this we a cruising along under an amazing starlit sky with a reef in, our medium sized Yankee and a staysail reaching speeds in the high 8's.

Stu

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Hummingbird arrives in St Lucia

well for hummingbird today was officially the end of the Atlantic! we made it! over 2000 miles down in less than 12 days! from Cape Verdes..... to not escaping the Cape Verdes for a long long long long long time as we made the decision to sail the whole way. No motoring! Arriving in St Lucia 2nd! (of the non motoring) made us very proud. A big hands up to all the crew today as it was cleaning scrubbing washing and wooling spinnakers all before showers and an afternoon of fun and games for Terry our infamous Birthday boy on board this involves chocolate cake and cards and for others, Afternoon shopping and massages for Clare.and Lis.... I thought this was a hardcore sailing holiday! apparently Stephen took their lead with an afternoon at the beach, while Kiki went looking for a double bed to relax on, no bunk for her tonight! Danny and Gary went on the hunt for the perfect coffee but actually retired back to the boat deciding they needed to have their before 'on watch' contemplation.... so would make the coffee thrmselves in order to meditate into the flames of the gas kettle. Meanwhile Charlie and Rene, our 2 loreal models, spent much of the afternoon shaving off their now flowing locks, and turned up for dinner in their finest shirts, very different men from those who arrived in Rodney Bay less than a day earlier. Tomorrow Hummingbird's crew is going to enjoy a well earned shore day exploring some of what st Lucia has to offer. But really we just want to see what is behind door number 5 on our advent calander..... 'Thanks Alex's mum for the random dodgy spanish chocolate advent calendar' ... the pics are cool, however we're still educating the crew on how to use one.... numbers 1, 2, 23, and 3 are currently open and the door for 4 got torn off!   Till our next adventure which looks to be south through the grenadines farewell from Hummingbird. St Lucia Rum all round! Stu and Alex 

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Hummingbird nears land and a shock awaits.... land

As the sun sets on our penultimate night at sea thoughts turn to what we will do on our arrival....

Stu - be forced by his crew mates to buy a new pair of trainers. Alex - will be drying out her pink pyjamas and bunny slippers Charlie - trim his now flowing locks Clare - continue her enthusiasm for deck checks ashore and ensure her fellow crew show no sign of chafe Terry - will still be trying to figure out were we are Kiki - feeling sea sick as she floats around on a lilo in the pool wondering what the ripples say about the wind force Gary - wants to turn around and head back out to sea Lis - will likely be doing laundry even tho she has done it nearly every day on crossing Danny - won't be going anywhere as he will still be struggling to untie his safety tether Stephen - will disappear to the nearest jazz bar never to be seen again Rene - head for high ground in order to escape the attacking flying fish From all onboard.

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Hummingbird and an alternative mid-Atlantic life!

Happy St Andrew's Day from "Researcher Ridge" in the Atlantic!  In celebration of this event, our two resident Scots, skipper Stuart and his Dad, Charlie, appeared on deck in their finest tartan this morning, much to the shock of the rest of the crew (it was blowing 20 knots at the time and you know what they say about Scotsmen and their kilts...).  You've never seen so many people quite so intently focussed on scanning the horizon for hazards before...thankfully, the wind eased off shortlq1 y after their appearance on deck and everyone was able to relax again. Well, everyone except for Danny and Gary - even after 9 days on board, Danny, our resident American, is unable to understand anything that Charlie or Stuart says, so Gary has to translate, much to the amusement of everyone else. As another nod to St Andrew, at first light this morning, we decided to launch our tartan spinnaker as the wind had shifted enough to allow us to fly it and still point towards St Lucia.  We managed to hold it through a tricky few hours of only 9 knots of wind and now as we head into the night time, the wind has picked up and we are charging along at around 9 knots. Our final tribute to St Andrew was dinner prepared by Charlie (and pretend Scot for the evening) Lis (Danish is almost Scottish, right?) - a fine spread of haggis, neaps and tatties with a Hummingbird twist.  The twist being that it was actually burgers with sweet potato and butternut squash mash.  Dinner was served as the sun set while Stuart gently played the bagpipes in the background. Thank goodness St Andrew's Day is just one day and not one of our 25 hour days... In other news...Gary discovered after 9 days on board that there is tomato ketchup in the galley.  The only thing that made him smile more than this revelation was the announcement from Terry that at our current pace we only have 80 hours until we arrive in St Lucia.  Think Cheshire Cat. ..Steve picked up the sextant for the first time today and reports that he calculated our position to within 1m.  Well done Steve! ...Renee proudly helmed an entire stint without the spinnaker collapsing once. ...Alex has decided that if we are due in on Monday, she will have one final clothes change on Sunday, "that'll be alright won't it?"....Kiki successfully hosted a pub quiz, which may make another appearance before our arrival in St Lucia due to its popularity...and Terry and Clare are still struggling with basic addition in their celestial navigation calculations but every time they fix their errors, they report that they are "total geniuses". Until tomorrow...goodbye from the middle of the ocean! - By Clare

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Hummingbird leaves Cape Verde to sail the Atlantic with the ARC+

So away we go towards St Lucia, starting at a whopping 2kts of speed with Charlie on the helm. Determined to sail away we had a perfect start, except all others had engines on and most motored away from us. In happier news the crew had a great treat of Ice cream with the best moment for Clare being Steve managing to get it on his nose! Flappy the non flying sails have taken over from our friend in previous blogs of flappy the flying fish unfortunately, and they were being problematic for Liz who was learning to helm spinnakers while they flap! In the first 6 hours of today's race we have done more spinnaker practice than we have in the rest of this trip put together having tried out the brand new spinakker and decided we all liked the old one better so changed back! Thanks to Rene, Terry, Gary, Danny and Kiki who all jumped in to move poles, drop sails and rig new ones as well as learning spinnaker packing. With a crew now settling into the watch systems and our speed up at  4kts we are looking forward to a relaxed night with wind picking up tomorrow for a great trip across the Atlantic.