The final preparations!

There has been a enormous amount of preparation for this trip but since we arrived in Las Palmas we have had a fun week of seminars and socials.

At the beginning of the week we spent a day in seminars learning about downwind sailing, provisions, rigging, weather and much more. This was quite a tiring day and pretty overwhelming! Whilst I did get to the point where I was completely fed up of hearing about SSB radios, which we don’t even have, some of them have been interesting. The provisions seminar was quite interesting as we learnt a lot about how to store fruit and veg. For example, to dry everything out in the sun and then wrap them individually in kitchen paper. They also suggested you spin eggs to find out if they are rotten or not, although I don’t think we will be trying that as the smell of rotten egg in the bilges is not an appealing one! She also showed us pictures of fresh items that people still had in Saint Lucia, which was very impressive. For example, one lady had managed to keep a lettuce fresh on a boat for a month in the tropics. We also learnt about how to deal with emergencies and the lecturer showed us some pictures of people who had lost their steering and rigged up an alternative, such as attaching the toilet cupboard door or a drogue (large piece of material used to slow a boat down) to a pole.

There has been a fun element with the socials. I will admit that I was rather concerned and nervous about going to these events as I did not expect to see many people my age there but they were still fun. We went to a crew dinner where it was nice to meet other people doing the same thing as us. There was also a fancy dress party with the theme of flower power and it would have been highly entertaining to see Peter, Manfred and my dad dressed up in some jazzy outfits. However the ARC organisers changed it to a Halloween party and we didn’t realise, so we missed that unfortunately. I’m sure there will be another opportunity to witness them in ridiculous outfits! On Friday night there was a big farewell and welcome party for the ARC+ who are leaving and the ARC who are arriving. The council hosted this and they put on quite a show! There was traditional Canarian music, food and dancing which created a good atmosphere. Whilst the social side of the ARC has been tricky it has been fun to meet people doing the same thing as us!

At the end of the week we came to what felt like a mountainous task of organising and buying the food! I have been determined that I will not do all the cooking so we set up a rota and planned what meals we were going to cook. There is a special meat company which provide frozen vacuum packed meats that they deliver to the boat. This was great, although it was very easy to over order, which we did and we now have a huge amount of meat to store. We then went to the supermarket where we spent 3 hours gathering 5 big trolleys worth of food and that also had to be delivered to the boat. As I was wandering around the supermarket with my 3 trolleys full of food ,they started to play the Proclaimers '500 mile 'song which was very strange and I found myself feeling quite homesick. The shop assistants were all very helpful even though not all of them spoke good English. I discovered this when I asked where the flour was and they showed me flowers! We then had the overwhelming task of fitting all of this into the boat, which took another 3 hours. The bags filled the cockpit and were all over the deck so it was quite difficult to know where to start. However, we managed to get it all stowed away with some storage to spare. The meat then arrived and we quickly realised that no dairy would be able to go in the fridge so we all sat down for a glass of milk!! Finally by about 5pm we had a fridge packed with meat, bilges full of eggs and dairy, a cockpit filled with fruit and veg drying and a fore- cabin stuffed with cans and dried food. Needless to say it was a tiring day!

Overall, it has been a pretty tough week. Getting used to being on a boat with 3 men and avoiding getting overwhelmed by the sailing world has not been a walk in the park. But then I remind myself that this is a big adventure and I am so lucky to have this opportunity.

We set off at 1 o’clock this afternoon and I am full of emotions. It is a very strange thought that I won’t see land for 7 days, but it is stranger still to think how the world will change and we will be unaware of it. I think it will be a challenge and I’m sure I will have lots of stories to tell at Christmas!