The locals

Whilst at sea it is common to encounter a bit of wildlife and bump into the locals but what we saw a few days back is something else that we first noticed as it swam 10 foot from our starboard beam. There were pictures taken but no chance to get any video footage. 2 days later and I had invented a crude way to use the GoPro underwater when the perfect opportunity arose to try it out. I'm fairly sure after talking to people and friends on the pontoons in st lucia that no one else has got anything as rare as this to show

In st lucia hungover

We are now in Rodney bay, st lucia after a very eventful and fast crossing. We arrived in less than 14 days after rocketing across the Atlantic.  We have encountered squalls, huge frontal depressions, no wind, big seas, choppy seas, a massive wave over the transom flooding the cockpit, broken sails, broken generator, broken electronics but now all back and working beautifully. We have caught tuna and dorado, seen lots of dolphins and some whales too, had a midway swim and an excellent trip that the boat has given us and looked after us fantastically. Until next time I'll let my video do the business

This is it

We are all waiting on the dock until 1000 when we can leave to make the start at 1045. Progress can be followed at worldcruising.com/arc where all of the boats are fitted with a yellowbrick tracker that transmits every 6 hours. More from me in a couple of weeks

Staying busy

In anticipation of leaving the dock and spending two to three weeks offshore the crew of proteus are staying occupied with final jobs. One of which we had to recruit a friend of ours to get a rather crucial component back from the seabed


The boat has now been filled to the gunwales with fruit and veg as can be seen in the picture

One of extra crew for the Atlantic crossing is also a bit of an artist and a is customary to do before a crossing, he has painted Proteus onto the wall that backs onto the boat

The wait

This has only happened once before in 1989! The start of the ARC has been revised so there is now a start on Tuesday to mimic the Sunday start. The way it is looking is most if not all will go for the Tuesday start, us included. We are all itching to get moving and the boat is in great shape

Freak weather

Up early

This is the view from the back of the boat this morning. Straight with the tall white mast is the predecessor to proteus, an oyster 66. Beyond that is the newly built j-class Ranger that can be seen to the left a bit in the distance

Puerto caleros

We have been in lanzarote of a couple of days now. It's nice sat in the marina here but there isn't anything outside of so we have hired a car for today to explore and get to the supermarket.  The sail here was about as mixed as you can get. The straights of Gibraltar gave us 40kts of wind where we did 14.5 kts heavily reefed, the wind dropped a bit but continued to blow then turned to very variable strength but we were still making good progress.  Off the coast of morocco we kept encountering numerous fishing buoys and approximately 20ft small fishing boats quite often with one small outboard motor up to 50 miles offshore in heavy swell and squally weather. We also encountered a hail storm where the stones were as big as the end of my thumb. The only real drama I have seen since is two boats in the marina not giving any consideration and having a collision which could have been avoided with ease. Will be in las palmas in a few days to prepare for the start of the ARC

Now leaving gib. Next destination lanzarote

The rain is on

After arriving in Palma I left the airport in style ridding in a landy 110 with no doors and a lot of bolted on extra parts, pulled into marina moll vell, threw my bags in the boat, unplugged and went straight for puerto banus. I am now much more akin with the boat and keen to get on the voyage. Tosh (the skipper), bryony (our hostess and tosh's soon to be wife) and myself have had a great time here including a dinner at the owner's house and a look around the garage containing some rare motors. Next stop is Gibraltar for a morrison's shopping trip and some new sunglasses since I left mine in the back of a taxi in hamburg

The info

More can be seen here:
The Atlantic crossing http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/
The world voyage http://www.oysteryachts.com/worldrally/

Pre beginning

It's one week until I leave for Palma to join the boat where we won't be hanging about and heading for Grand Canaria for the start of the ARC heading for Saint Lucia. Keep looking here for updates, photos and video from my adventures on the trip and the Oyster World Rally on this route http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=204095977975343202179.0004add5c473657d33cc6&ie=UTF8&t=m&vpsrc=6&ll=11.178402,-49.921875&spn=102.165461,234.84375&z=1&source=embed