So close now! Less than 8 hours............

Speed: 7.6 knots @ 266.56°

Position at: 10 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC

Lat/Lon: 13° 58.80 N, 059° 58.06 W

DTF: 59.1 NM  Estimated arrival 07.55 UTC  Dec 10th

Distance (last 24hrs): 178 NM

7th in All Racing Division

35th in All boats

5th in Racing B

It will be dark still in the Caribbean so time to get some rest before the friends on board Monomotapa and everyone on  Milanto party tomorrow evening. What a great way to end a fabulous trip. Congratulations to all on board both yachts!

A big thank you to all who followed us across the Atlantic and also to the team at World Cruising for another great ARC Rally.

Happy Birthday!

Milanto is only 46' so you would not think one could pull a fast one an anybody on board. But Carla did! She managed to cook a chocolate cake without Valerio even noticing so he was mega happy with the surprise of the yummy present ...and a bottle of champagne to wash it all down.

The sun is out, one can feel the Tropics in the air, no need to wrap up any more during the day.Speed, thanks to the spinnaker is good

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Speed: 7.6 knots @ 268.52°  Position at: 01 Dec 2014 12:00 UTC  

Lat/Lon: 21° 49.60 N, 035° 29.31 W   DTF: 1524.4 NM   Distance (last 24hrs): 178 NM

12th in All Racing Division   47th in All boats   8th in Racing B

--Hi everybody
good morning today i s a great day and we have so many things to celebrate that we are thinking to organize a party on board so everyone who is in the aerea is welcome to join us
you maybe think that  I'm little bit crazy but let's go in order
FIRST of all today is our first sunny day ole'
SECOND we finally changed our point of sail and now we are downwind sail urra'
THIRD last night we fly the kite all the night and Milanto were going so fast that she seems to fly on the water, but unfortunately we just blow it up so were are again on white sails for the moment sigh sigh...... BUT WE have a spare spinnaker so soon it will fly AGAIN
FORTH we've lready sailed more than 1200miles almost half way of our trip and this is another reason to celebrate
fifth but the most important reason to have a party on board today is that TODAY IS OUR SKIPPER BIRTHDAY so must have fun that why now we are going to have a special menu:
home made pesto lasagne, curry chicken, chocolate and pear cake
and champagne as drink
not so bad isn't true?
(by the way last night "rabbit au vin" was great)

Incredible sailing! 11 knots surfing down the waves....

Adding some of the ARC 2013 photos

These keep arriving.........my guess is that the Amsterdam trip was a reminder! Tks John!

So if you go back into the daily log  further down the blog you can see quite a few scenes from the crossing and there are some new ones  in Ocean -ARC Rally too.

Here is Nick, the last man in St Lucia who was able to collect the prize.