Rainbow

here is herbert again from aboard MILANTO on her cruise to St.Lucia
I tricked you with my last blog - there is no 31st of nov! but here you loose any feeling for time and calender - sorry.
19 02 325 N, 45 04 860 W, only another 959nM till St.Lucia to go.
4 fish took the bait but we could not get them on board because of our speed. what a pity - i am so much looking forward to have some fresh fish again. it tasted so beautiful.
dolphines accompanied our boat for more than an hour, chasing the bow, app 20 of them. while I watched their joyful game, I had the the impression, that this is a perfect moment in life. sailing under the blue sky, in this cobalt blue ocean, watching the fins of the dolphines coming out of the water and diving in again in a perfect motion, two, three sometimes for of them at once. and short after that we saw the wahles - impressing - a huge whale jumping out of the water, his whole body in the air, and back again with a tremendous splash, whoooom. two more times we could see his enormous tail coming out, and then a last fountain blown up high in the air before he left. what an amazing and emotioning spectacle. Everything here seems to be so harmonic and in perfect order, a perfect world.
Finally we cought the famous tradewinds, pushing our spinaker to the west, not so strong but solid. during the day it's sunshine and watching the clouds change permanently their form, building houses, cities, animals, faces and then evapourate back into the blue sky, at night they build up to big black nasty-looking bastards and then they send us a short and warm rain. here I am, where our weather comes from, here our snow and rain is born, from here starts the well-known "atlantic-depression", characterising our climate at home.I very much hope, that whales and dolphins are not going to stop jumping and chasing the waves - this would comfort me.
best regards from all of us to all of you
ahoi
herbert

Squals

Speed: 7.9 knots @ 255.73°

 

Position at: 03 Dec 2014 04:00 UTC  Lat/Lon: 20° 37.50 N, 040° 35.56 W

DTF: 1229.9 NM  Distance (last 24hrs): 188 NM

10th in All Racing Division  40th in All boats  7th in Racing B  for now expected arrival in St Lucia Dec 9th. The first yacht<,Leopard by Finland, has arrived today -congratulations- but she is 100 foot long, so that helps!

Water was literally chucked at us, winds gusting 30 kn.The spinnaker was still p, so the boat knocked sideways, however we managed to pull her back, sort the sails, now running with a small genoa and have go below,utterly exhausted by all the effort.Milanto is truly great!

Monomotapa in the thick of it but all are OK too ,despite winds upto 35kn. It all suddenly became a war zone-totally out of the blue.

More Mahi-mahi.....

Speed: 7.5 knots @ 252.29°

 

Position at: 02 Dec 2014 12:00 UTC

Lat/Lon: 21° 15.34 N, 038° 22.54 W

DTF: 1359.7 NM

Distance (last 24hrs): 165 NM

Previously:

good afternoon, this is herbert again, on board of MILANTO on her cruise to St.Lucia.
our position now is 24 47 475 N, 36 08 161 W, bearing 258 at app. 8Kts, still 1490Nm to go, 1157Nm already done.
What a day. pure sunshine, rainbows in the morning, 20Kts of wind. washing t-shirts on board, breaking a spinaker and enjoying Valerios birthdayparty on board with a cake done by Carla a well as a beautiful chilli to protect him and the ship. Josef got a neclace of real chillis to protect him from exidents on board. champagne and singing. we swapped now to the bigger spi - let's see what the night will bring with this.
the last days have been calm and comfortable, at last we left the rainclouds and the cold behind us, as well as the crosswinds. the fishing-bet between Josef and me is now 1all as I also got a nice MahiMahi yesterday. day by day I get more and more used to the rythm of the day- and nightshifts. I have no problems anymore to find my equipment in the dark night and to adjust oilskin, vest and harness, headlamp and AIS. god bless the invention of the autohelm.
best regards to all of you from us
ahoi 
herbert

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


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)