Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
Lat 13.9N Lon 60.9W
Downright Surreal ! Sitting in the various meetings and seminars arranged by the World ARC discussing places like Colombia, Galapagos and French Polynesia.
Our long-planned circumnavigation is starting FOR REAL!!
All the planning, provisioning and purchases are mostly behind us, now we will find out if our preparations were adequate and if the crew is as well found as ALORA. The planning by the World ARC people is so detailed, I wonder how we have survived sailing the past decades with our own version of offshore preparedness !
Diane and Erwin Wanderer, friends and fellow CCA members, are aboard until the Pacific side of Panama and will be helping us sort out our various downwind sails with which we are somewhat unfamiliar. And whenever there is more than one boat, there will invariably be a race and the World ARC is no exception. With several Hylas yachts participating, we are counting on the Wanderers racing experience to get us to the finish line with as little embarrassment as possible. Years of North and South sailing are not so conducive to spinnaker flying and Colombia is a full out downwind run to the West! Needless to say, the upcoming trade wind passages in the Pacific will be quite the lesson for us.
Let the journey begin…
L.Stel