Ice Cold In Alex

Saturday 5 December – 15:00 GMT (12:00 boat time)
15.57N 51.09W – 579 nm to go – 6.0 knots

We are on the count down. The talk in the boat onboard Swan 51 Star Chaser is on what we are all going to do when we get there. Some of us (Ahem! The astro navigator) have already lost the sweep steak of twenty dollars a head for the closest eta. So much for the astro nav course. As the old school reports used to say, ’could do better’.
Some are talking of re arranging flights to get home sooner, or hitting a hotel with a static bed, crisp sheets and a long hot shower, some are already booked in for a holiday resort all inclusive break. But all are talking in one way or another of the long tall cold beer…
It’s twenty nine degrees Celsius below decks with the hatches open and fans on. For the movie buffs amongst you think of John Mills in that Hotel in Alexandria with Jean McKenna and others with the tall oh so tall, cold beer dripping with condensation and a cool frothy head after a trek across the desert with the army ambulance and you begin to get the drift.

Starters for ten, John Mills, Jean McKenna and who else were at that bar in ‘Ice Cold in Alex.’
Answers on a post card please.
All else is fine, the sea is calm, the wind is slight but we are still on target for St Lucia. Mind the squalls!!!! They’re wet, cool and windy. Adrian took some really first rate photos of what was promising to drop on us but didn’t. Shame really, Barry had already stripped down to his trollies and had shampoo in hand when a wind shift took the impromptu shower to our stern and dumped probably tons of water in the Atlantic and not on us. Not so lucky last night, still drying out from that one and reeling from the sudden twenty knot wind shifts. All serves to keep you on your toes!
Until St Lucia.

Andy