The Big Apple?

Team Jamaica

The Jamaica stop over was a really nice and welcome few days off, but the race start to NY wiped away any lingering thoughts of chilling with rum from our minds as we beat up windward to the east side of Cuba.

As we are not allowed within 12 nm of Cuba nor Haiti, that left us a very narrow passage between the two, from which the wind was blowing a decent 20 to 30 knots. Add a nice big 'ole swell and you have the perfect ingredients for some interesting sailing!

Unfortunately our actual start was rather poor. We were too far off the line when the gun went off, and as a result found ourselves at the back of the fleet. Some clever manouvering towards the first windward mark, and we managed to make up 4 places. However, a slight tactical faux pas saw us heading east and when the weather decided *not* to follow the forecast, we lost a lot of ground.

29 May 11 AM

Never ones to give up, we set about trimming and as we rounded Cuba we have been steadily ticking off places on the leader board. On the last sched we were 7th and making good grounds on the rest of the fleet, even though we've just hit a rather nasty wind hole. We have our code 1 kite up, and although it's slow progress, we *are* moving (and judging from the scheds faster than the others) through said hole, so hopefully we'll be flying at 12 knots again sooner than later.

The sun is still burning down on us, and although we are now no longer in the tropics, one could be forgiven to think we are eternally stuck in them. Perhaps that's the Bermuda Triangle at work!

Just a few days more and we'll get to NYC. And as we were stuck for a few hours in the lighter winds, we pondered just on why it's called the Big Apple. Without internet, this remains a mystery so we will now start making up stories. So far the best anyone can come up with is that "everyone can take a bite", which just isn't good enough... We have about 4 days to improve on that

PS. Thanks Ian for recommending (on Good Reads) the "Gone Away War"; very funny reading on off watches!